Increase in forum traffic

[FliesLikeABrick]

So I always cringe when people say how the forums are dying, soldat is dying, etc etc - but it looks like there has been a recent increase in traffic if you look at the forum stats page:
http://forums.soldat.pl/index.php?action=stats

In December we had our highest number of pageviews in a month since March 2009 - almost 2 years.  I suspect that with the new developers and their visible hard work in the Developer Log forum we'll continue to see things pick up.  I have also started to notice more new members on the forums lately, so hopefully that means even more maps, mods and sub-game modes than what have already driven Soldat to be such a successful indy game  

While some people are clearly pessimistic about Soldat's future, I am nothing but optimistic, especially with our new dev team who continue to have my full support.

Happy new year everyone, and let us all look forward to a great year for Soldat and whatever else MM and his fellow devs have in store for us!

[Illuminatus]

Well said.
Looking at the stats: 70871 page views on 2010-12-11. But no special increase in posts, threads, new members or most online. Strange...
Same on 2010-12-13 and 2010-12-16.

I would really be interested in stats of the Soldat lobby. How the number of players and servers developed over time. I don't know if MM wants to release them but maybe you or jrgp could give us a hint.

[FliesLikeABrick]

Unfortunately those numbers have never really been archived adequately, though I agree it would be an interesting metric.  From time to time I do try and compile rough traffic trends from forums.soldat.pl and soldat.pl, maybe I will try to do that again soon (including how many downloads of Soldat there are month to month)

[Clawbug]

Considering that there were some 400-500 new members per month on 2007, and this year started with less than 60 new members on January.. That is, less than 15 % what it USED to be. At this pace we'd be getting less than 6 new members to the forums per month by 2015. Can't be very optimistic with such long term progress.

[FliesLikeABrick]

yeah, the growth has slowed but I'll be interested to see what happens over the next 6 months.  it would be neat to see the growth increase again

[Clawbug]

True. 1.4-like promotional campaing for 1.5.2?

[GhostRiderSwiss]

cant hurt i think u find many litle helpers i could help grow soldat for swiss / german and i got also alot us friends where could make some promo there somewhere 

if somebody is interested to rly start such a campaign i rly would be up for and would be enjoyed to help for.

[jrgp]

cant hurt i think u find many litle helpers i could help grow soldat for swiss / german and i got also alot us friends where could make some promo there somewhere 

if somebody is interested to rly start such a campaign i rly would be up for and would be enjoyed to help for.

Yes, please tell all your friends, make sure they tell their friends, and do whatever you possibly can to get as many people you know in real life to play Soldat as possible.

[Dusty]

no point in doing so before the new release, the current version is a wreck

i wonder when that is though

[jrgp]

no point in doing so before the new release, the current version is a wreck

I don't feel 1.5 is too bad; I play it every day and there are lots of servers for it.

But yeah, the latest beta's enesce released are nothing short of atrocious.

[Dusty]

the lack of decent anti-cheat and some horrifying bugs (eg. the dm scoreboard) will just turn the new players away. of course it's fine for the old players like you and me because we're used to it and we have chosen this game, but it's not the same for new players.

[Blacksheepboy]

As the years pass, more kids grow up and discover this uber l33t gamezors.

[FliesLikeABrick]

The reason I'm interested in the next 6 mo is as the new developers work out the bugs and issues that would turn away new and old gamers alike, there's the potential to have new volume added

[GhostRiderSwiss]

well i like the current version i still dont get whats wrong on it - beside that my favorite wep the styr aug has only 25 bullets (god thanks to the mighty bonecrusher addin 5 more bullets back for his server atleast^^) but ... when comes the new version? is there a date set? or is it wrote into the stars when it comes? cauze otherwhise it makes sence to start a campaign RIGHT NOW! ^^

[demoniac93]

Son, for the love of everything holy, open your goddamn eyes and start using your brain for reading more than pron mags, the game right now is a complete and utter disaster, by going on an all out campaign right now we'll only be scaring off potential future players.

@Joe: I was a teenager too, once, hell I still need to satisfy myself every now and then, but the key words were "more than", because as appealing as it sounds, I doubt a lifetime spent jacking off is a life worth living.

[jrgp]

reading [..] pron mags,

Nothing wrong with that.

when comes the new version? is there a date set? or is it wrote into the stars when it comes?

It will get released "when it's done." Not sooner and not after. The devs don't want to disappoint anyone with a release that's anything less than annoyance-free.

[FliesLikeABrick]

April 2011 (a.k.a "last month") was our highest traffic since March 2009 at 1.1 million pageloads on the forums.  That actually makes it one of our higher months ever, we've had relatively few over 1 million.

[DarkCrusade]

All thanks go to Mangled and jrgp posting pictures of himself!

[PQ]

Just 4 times less post.

We must have gotten more interesting..
I will have to wait for the 12345th member for too long with just 2 new members though.

edit: Quite funny how most of the days are still just as bad as before but April 13 and 14 having FAR more views
Can't even find a topic with that many views, so the frontpage must be really interesting.

[demoniac93]

Meh, it's mostly because we've had tons of discussions this past month, all if which quickly turned into personal debates.