Community activity very low

I'm sure everyone has noticed although I don't see it being discussed.

The community of active players has become very small. I am now number 36 on the 1v1 ladder, with 1722 elo. I don't think it would be inaccurate to suggest that some of this may be attributed to Fallout 4 and that these players will come back, but it does feel like the end of days.

If we do start running out of playerbase, what can we do to get the game noticed? I mean, ZK has never been so polished - we've never had to many beautiful maps - balance has never been so good. We've got everything going for us now except regular players (and a lobby that prevents the community playing 20v20). I would be amazingly sad if we did an Imperial Winter and never went for it (Steam/all out release everywhere) before imploding.

Being higher on the ladder has more to do with the new stricter activity requirements for the leaderboard than decreased player body I think.

quote: Maybe players left because they don't agree with this. Or maybe it was due to infrastructure. Perhaps something else.

I attribute this to the community - it is difficult to get the game size and game type you want to play, unless you constantly want to play 20v20 clusterfuck or 1v1.

quote: On topic: push the Steam- and other official release thingies. There's some ToDo lists, take them, cut them down to the bare minimum required and finally get ZK rolling?

+1

Im working on steam, can do open beta there but lobby is still not read, it will take months still.

quote: Yeah, we need to have everything absolutely done

A thousand noes.

Also, I really think (and suggested before) we can have a "ZK to steam hackathon" on some weekend to drive specific points forward.
If you are a productive person who is interested contact me.
If there's enough interest, I'll organise it (in coordination with the team obviously).

List of people who voiced interest:
- Licho
- Anarchid

Parzival, there is not a single game on Steam that has everything absolutely "done". For any successful game (that is not as simple as Tetris or Breakout) there are at least a dozen bugs and small quirks. And if they're just a tad complex then there's probably a thousand or more bugs, a few of those severe.

I am bringing friends into the game.

Changing the lobby over completely from ZKLobby to weblobby with all the workflow warts of a brand new lobby infra post-Steam release seems like a recipe for disaster.

Licho, does this also apply to "only non steam and not steam + non steam"? 'Cause then fuck Steam! Just get things done right (and noob-proof) for everything else so we can finally start advertising a very-playable ZK. \o/

I think the problem is not the game itself, because it is beautiful in both the strategy in the graphic, the problem is in the community of players. in my opinion it should be hidden and the elo all symbols related (hat napoleon etc.), showing only the ranking. everything to prevent new players or anyone who loves this game, but that does not have a score elo strong, are hurt by the stronger ones.
terms like lobsters wubsters etc. do not do well in this game, and should be punished anyone who abuse these terms, so as to encourage anyone to go in the game, and not let it become a game for a few people. In conclusion it is right that there is a ranking in continuous evolution, that they operate 1VS 1 tournaments, 2vs2, 3vs3 and that passionate about and make it interesting for the players reach high positions, without discouraging those who stay behind.