Is It Quiet Around Here, Or Is It Just Me?

[Legoclub22]

The general forums seem pretty dang deserted these days. The first page of off-topic threads goes all the way back to April. First page of general goes all the way to August. Help Central goes all the way back to June. I swear that back in the day you could see a new thread at least every few days.

Additionally, in regalia, though I haven't been on in a bit, it was starting to feel pretty dead. Nobody ever in the tavern, few people in the sewer tavern. Almost any hub I went to seemed more or less deserted, and there weren't many people wandering around, either.
I remember times back in V4 when you'd be able to run into someone when wandering around. Tavern almost always had someone in it.

And noobs! Namely, the absence of any! I haven't seen a noob in regalia in a long time. Nice vampires and vigilantes seem to be a dying breed, which is almost certainly a bad thing. The lack of posts on help Central also seems to imply a lack of people with questions to ask...

I can think of a few key factors that could be acting to this effect.

1. Less Minecraft players in general. Unlikely, since Minecraft had a resurgence in popularity. However, it could be attributed to the fact that nobody is interested in 1.12 or Factions/RP anymore.

2. Off season. Maybe I'm just remembering summer activity levels, which can't be reflected in November. I think that only winter break will tell in this regard.

3. Discord overcoming forums. It is possible that activity once held by the forums is now used on the massivecraft discords, but I have no way of confirming this.

4. Massivecraft is shrinking. Less people are joining, less players are being retained and more players are quitting. Activity remains only within closed circles, while everyone outside those circles struggles to find anything to do, due to lack of other people in their perspective circle.

Thoughts? I'm interested to see how many replies this post actually gets.

 

[grizenator]

If no ones playing the game no one is going to be lurking the forums

 

[digimoto]

Definitely discord, why take the time to make any kind of lore inquiry post when you can just #player-help-chat or PM the discord bot, why post art and other social type posts when you can just say what's up in #banter or post art in the image spam anyway you should get the picture.

 

[Arhbi]

You must play exclusively during the off-hours if you're struggling to bump into people in the streets. I live in a timezone that is probably the least accomodating for roleplaying, and even still, whenever I log onto the server, the Golden Willow tavern always has people in it thanks to its relocation and redesign. This is especially true for noble lounge. I always notice new players loitering around the area, and I occasionally see more seasoned players also loitering just outside of the tavern, if not inside, waiting to recruit these new players into their social circles. In the very same street as the Willow there are a number of popular businesses which I always see people visiting. The Golden Hive is the first to come to mind in this regard because it is incredibly active on nearly an everyday basis.

As for the sewer tavern being less active, I suspect that the reason for this is because of the implementation of the new criminal haven. Its name escapes me, but I think it's called Crooked Cove or something along those lines. This is the new hotspot for criminal activity, or so I'm told.

 

[Bearacuda]

TLDR;
Massive is full of people, somewhat recent and very recent. The new sewer tavern can be empty at times but is generally filled with people. The forums are obsolete when it comes to discord. No one wants to write up a post when you can just type if on discord. Most character circles are not actually closed and it just takes the initiative of the person wanting to join to actually join. Reason why some player groups don't change is because of OOC drama or history with some people. It happens. And, a lot of people don't actually confine themselves to a 'circle' yeah they got good friends but there's been a lot of people that dart from place to place throughout the year with one or two characters.

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If I may add. There is a full community with people all across the server. In reality too massive has been actually growing more. I've seen more new people during the course of this year than I have before. Including people like Yurs, and Hasagi who joined somewhat recently and are now star roleplayers in the eyes of just mine but more than many people. But even newer than that you've got these two Kathar players, out of many I should add, Imnotblue and Beanmom who are fresh off the recommended page that I've have some run ins with.

Arhbi up here is also correct about the sewer tavern. It's not always full but it's generally stocked with plenty of new and sometimes older players.

As for the forums. Who cares? Those parts of the forums are used for OOC memes and what other hell is on it, and there's a really easy substitute now. Damn it's been here a while actually. I think a lot of people have seen the forums now as a place of business now rather than simple "what would your character do?" Or "FACE REVEAL" *airhorn* Most of those newer people I mentioned before are writing up more lore stories than I ever seen. A lot people use the forums primarily for their art or selling of, and the rest is just IC Progression posts and character apps. Since, you guessed it, the king of communication discord, is so much more simpler to write and post. A lot of people just find it easier to post their epic and hot memes in a server rather than fully write up a post. And there have been tons of servers that I've been on that have a chat dedicated to just character questions and related topics.

Only thing I agree with slightly is the circles. But at the same time with my one character. One that I've had for more than a year now. Tapped into different groups, places, people, and shenanigans that have gone on, and I see lot of other people do the same and get out of their comfort zones. If I could relate another person, Atlas or Athelios Who was head of crime, played a crime leader way before, and started a new character after a year that was a Kathar criminal alongside a gang, and now she's part of the violet order. As a Captain in a group of changed Kathar into Manathar. That's diverse and different enough for me. And me as well. I've only had two actually mains during the course of a few years. The last also being a criminal character. And now I play a Officer in the guard.

It's also best instead to just. Roleplay, it's what everyone is here for, and no one is gonna be mad that someone walks up and wants to interact. And not mentioning that's HOW you get into those groups. If you're level headed and interested enough to try and get in then I'd say your chances are pretty good. If they deny someone it's either them not wanting someone, or the track record of the person/OOC history.

 

[Legoclub22]

So, from what I gather of these replies, regalia is doing well, just has some pretty big fluctuations over three course of a day. What hours are you guys usually seeing the most activity?

And the forums, aside from what is necessary to post on them, have been almost fully replaced with discord. Makes sense.

 

[Bearacuda]

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4:00 pm - 1:00 am CNT are hours I see most on.

And yeah pretty much. If your not on it I'd say join the community discord server.

 

[Jalapeno690]

You must play exclusively during the off-hours if you're struggling to bump into people in the streets. I live in a timezone that is probably the least accomodating for roleplaying, and even still, whenever I log onto the server, the Golden Willow tavern always has people in it thanks to its relocation and redesign. This is especially true for noble lounge. I always notice new players loitering around the area, and I occasionally see more seasoned players also loitering just outside of the tavern, if not inside, waiting to recruit these new players into their social circles. In the very same street as the Willow there are a number of popular businesses which I always see people visiting. The Golden Hive is the first to come to mind in this regard because it is incredibly active on nearly an everyday basis.

As for the sewer tavern being less active, I suspect that the reason for this is because of the implementation of the new criminal haven. Its name escapes me, but I think it's called Crooked Cove or something along those lines. This is the new hotspot for criminal activity, or so I'm told.

Click to shrink...

Wtf is this??? Recruit for Regalia day??? Think it's better people stop this RP/ factions talk and instead focus on the server, if the server dies so does factions and so does regalia, been saying this for years, sooner people catch themselves on and cutting away half of the other community the better

 

[Kleinfolk]

Wtf is this??? Recruit for Regalia day???

Click to shrink...

He's a Roleplayer, he's obviously going to comment on the RP side of the server, literally no need to get annoyed about it you spanner.

 

[Jalapeno690]

He's a Roleplayer, he's obviously going to comment on the RP side of the server, literally no need to get annoyed about it you spanner.

Click to shrink...

Look at the bigger picture, holy Christ for once

 

[Mycota]

Although I can't really say whether or not this place seems active as I've just joined, that alone should tell you... people are still looking to join! I'm proof of that! I'm just getting started but so far I'm really enjoying what I've seen. Community overall has been very welcoming and I'm looking forward to putting more time into my character, looking into factions down the line, etc. There's so much for me to do, and lots of wonderful people who have helped me so far.

I feel like discord *is* more active than the forums, though. Most people prefer instant messaging over lengthy threads, which is understandable. However, I like to utilize both!

 

[MyCatBubbles]

The discords seem lively, server on the other hand seems super dead. Guess we'll just wait for 1.13 to roll around the corner and see what happens then.

 

[Legoclub22]

Although I can't really say whether or not this place seems active as I've just joined, that alone should tell you... people are still looking to join! I'm proof of that! I'm just getting started but so far I'm really enjoying what I've seen. Community overall has been very welcoming and I'm looking forward to putting more time into my character, looking into factions down the line, etc. There's so much for me to do, and lots of wonderful people who have helped me so far.

I feel like discord *is* more active than the forums, though. Most people prefer instant messaging over lengthy threads, which is understandable. However, I like to utilize both!

Click to shrink...

I agree, I like both forums and discord! I guess we're old fashioned.

 

[Legoclub22]

The discords seem lively, server on the other hand seems super dead. Guess we'll just wait for 1.13 to roll around the corner and see what happens then.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, the discords are pretty active. I'm not sure that all of that activity is representative of on-sever activity.

 

[Lutowski]

From what I've seen, the usual prime time for the server is in the EST timezone, which can be tough to keep up with if you're GMT or JST. Since summber break ended there's been a considerable dip in activity but I think it should pick up again by winter break.

Discord is a lot more convenient for things like chatting or organising that the forums may not excel as well at, which is why it's more active. Though, if you ask me I don't think the server or the forum in any particular danger, since lots of people still use it to organise events, post lore stories and document their character sheets. If you stick around at EST, I'm sure you'll easily find players to interact with.

 

[MonMarty]

Prime time has shifted from 1 AM European to 4-5 AM European.

 

[Kleinfolk]

Prime time has shifted from 1 AM European to 4-5 AM European.

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Does that mean that most staff events will be hosted during prime time?

 

[MonMarty]

Does that mean that most staff events will be hosted during prime time?

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No. Staff events must remain within the ranges of GMT "acceptable", meaning midnight or 1 AM. I do host occasional events at 4 AM, but that is because that is just the time I stop "working" and sometimes it's unfeasible for me to host events earlier.

 

[Kleinfolk]

Okay, thanks @MonMarty

 

[Legoclub22]

So it went from early evening US time to night US time, interesting.