PVP or No PVP

[Gruu]

O.O

Posting here instead of in the test thread so I dont get my posts deleted.

MrDDT seems to always bring up during his testing of almost every patch to the effect that the only people that would take advantage of new items/stats/skills are the pvp'rs and people above 10+ (id say above 30+ because this is when most ftp would subscribe). it is then added that the PVP server is dead.

Whorlok replies that no it isnt...we have x amount of players and x more are in game when they are. and the rebuttal continues ( MrDDT and Unclean being the only ones to respond mostly), how many times have you come across another player on the PVP server...point made, its dead.

Well here are my 2 bits...

First...i have asked many since the server split if they want to PVP?. The % is still 30% for and 70% no or dont care with the majority stating that the main reason they play 90% of the time on Peace is because there are more people there to be social with. I have travelled quite a bit on pvp and still find new camps with between 3 to 7 players in them. I have also travelled some on PVE and yes i find more new camps but most are 2-3 players.

I still see the retention rate the same as if the servers were not split. My observations made during the dissing of these abandoned camps is the same on either server...they get to a point of getting mats up to Moderate to High, then see what it takes to get higher and they stop.

So...Second...the obvious...pvp and or content. Some of us have asked for more content ie: roaming mobs, but understandably we see that features and bugs are still of main concern. as for PVP, the % who still want it like myself, feel it still should be part of the game making us look over our shoulder. The % that dont want PVP just want to be left alone to play with Lincoln logs and make skyscrapers. Our initial attempt suggesting that PVP zones be made should have been looked at more but now that the server has been split would displace several if the PVP server was shut down and zones added to PVE.

The PVP server ...yes...appears dead but in my travels the PVE is just as dead when it comes down to comeing across other players. I dont have an answer or any new suggestions but to me the game is not whole without PVP.

I dont know how to set up votes but it would be interesting to see the actual % of who wants PVP and who doesnt but the questions have to relate to the game itself and not just ass hat griefers or hello kitty players.

BTW...i hope Whorlok's and MrDDT's posts get deleted from the test thread like mine did even tho what we all are saying has information players want to hear that can pertain to the testing of new stuff

Gruu

[MrDDT]

O.O

Posting here instead of in the test thread so I dont get my posts deleted.

MrDDT seems to always bring up during his testing of almost every patch to the effect that the only people that would take advantage of new items/stats/skills are the pvp'rs and people above 10+ (id say above 30+ because this is when most ftp would subscribe). it is then added that the PVP server is dead.

Whorlok replies that no it isnt...we have x amount of players and x more are in game when they are. and the rebuttal continues ( MrDDT and Unclean being the only ones to respond mostly), how many times have you come across another player on the PVP server...point made, its dead.

Well here are my 2 bits...

First...i have asked many since the server split if they want to PVP?. The % is still 30% for and 70% no or dont care with the majority stating that the main reason they play 90% of the time on Peace is because there are more people there to be social with. I have travelled quite a bit on pvp and still find new camps with between 3 to 7 players in them. I have also travelled some on PVE and yes i find more new camps but most are 2-3 players.

I still see the retention rate the same as if the servers were not split. My observations made during the dissing of these abandoned camps is the same on either server...they get to a point of getting mats up to Moderate to High, then see what it takes to get higher and they stop.

So...Second...the obvious...pvp and or content. Some of us have asked for more content ie: roaming mobs, but understandably we see that features and bugs are still of main concern. as for PVP, the % who still want it like myself, feel it still should be part of the game making us look over our shoulder. The % that dont want PVP just want to be left alone to play with Lincoln logs and make skyscrapers. Our initial attempt suggesting that PVP zones be made should have been looked at more but now that the server has been split would displace several if the PVP server was shut down and zones added to PVE.

The PVP server ...yes...appears dead but in my travels the PVE is just as dead when it comes down to comeing across other players. I dont have an answer or any new suggestions but to me the game is not whole without PVP.

I dont know how to set up votes but it would be interesting to see the actual % of who wants PVP and who doesnt but the questions have to relate to the game itself and not just ass hat griefers or hello kitty players.

BTW...i hope Whorlok's and MrDDT's posts get deleted from the test thread like mine did even tho what we all are saying has information players want to hear that can pertain to the testing of new stuff

Gruu

I didn't say the only reason, if you read the post, I talked about also raid mobs and harder mobs than a 1 week old player can kill being the hardest mobs in the game.

There is no doubt that the PVP server has less players. You might see new camps pop up here or there, but they have already put this out that the PVP server has no one playing it for huge parts of the day. Being that you do not play much on the PVE server, and from what I've seen not much as you used to on the PVP server you likely don't get the conv.

PVP content has always been a big issue of why the PVP server is dead. You don't support PVP in your game, you can't expect a PVP server to do well, it's pretty simple understanding. So I agree, adding PVP content would do wonders to make the PVP server more populated and likely is one of the better things for the game. PVP content is not that hard to do in a sandbox game, it's normally more PVP in a sandbox game BECAUSE of how easy it is to put into place.

Making a vote now of who would want PVP or not, would not favor PVP. Why? Because the game has all but pushed PVPers away, they do not look here for PVP anymore. Until there is an update or a change in the way the game treats PVP content, this will not change.

P.S.
The reason your post got deleted was the personal attacks, if you keep on topic the guides are pretty good about not getting involved with deleting or moding things.

[Gruu]

O.O

Yes...I do not play as much as in hrs per day but i still log in every day. The posts I am relating to have a common basis, saying the PVP server is dead...Me not getting the Conv? how bout you?, even tho i can see you are getting the gist of where im coming from, stays on the one side of the fence that has the most influence.

There is a Dilbert Cartoon that goes somewhat like this ( not verbatim)

The Intern sees a chance to speak to a CEO..."You know, iv'e heard that i can learn alot and better my chances to suceed if i associate with Higher level people"...the CEO replies..." We tend not to acknowledge the existance of lower life forms" yells out" SECURITY".

And then i can share a real life event....I was a clerk for the customer service dept of a high tech computer mfgr, mostly Government/Military or Big Industrial customers....I overhear 2 high paid, highly educated Engineers boggled about why a Processor Board is causing a lucrative customer a problem.
Having to write down the numerous complaints on repair tags of similar products and then reading them after Test has fixed the problem....I go over to the 2 Engineers and mention to them the area i am seeing being fixed by test might be caused by this other area and might be as simple as a jumper placement to fix. They look at me like "what the eff is this lil clerk saying", but instead of blowing me off they take what i said and looked at schematics and chip specs...moved 2 jumpers, made one hard wire path change and...Viola !!!...it works. Granted if i let them alone, eventually they would have figured it out but because of the Customer...time was critical...Customer happy...Big order....and I gets a small raise in pay.

Bottom line...no matter what the IQ level of a person...anything brought up in a situation is worth looking at and evaluating...the outcome MAY be fruitfull for all

Granted...this rebuttal has some merit to it but ends up with you on top of the cloud looking down...You attacked me in game but instead of just never talking to or about you like others do, I need to get it off my back so i posted what you said...and btw the first reason my posts were deleted was due to the guides decision, my post did not relate to the changes forthcoming and the attack second but i was defending.

I see no problem keeping the PVP in the foreground for the more it gets shelved the more it will go away.The game needs PVP before Steam release...and hearing what others say to obtain a % would still be nice to know.

Debate is Debate but you are clever in making the other guy seem wrong, i commend you on your success. if the game ultimately wants only the niche I'm seeing it go for then My efforts will have been in vain...but try I/we must.

Gruu

[MrDDT]

Thanks for considering me as a high paid CEO =P

Really I don't know what you are talking about in most of this here, but some of what I do see you saying isn't really on the topic.

About your efforts I believe that people give input in different ways, if you can discount what the rebuttal I said is, then I would be happy to discuss it, I do not see any input on that, nor do I see a point in strengthening what you said before.

It's a fact that the PVE server is much more active, this isn't my opinion.

The reasons why I believe the PVP server is less active (I would say dead) is what I listed before. Do you disagree with this?

About the buffs for food. PVP is a great reason to train skills, make better armor, weapons, tools, and food for the buffs and what not. Considering that the PVP server is dead, there is 1 part of buffs from food going to be missing.
Another reason in my opinion buffs from food would be wanted/needed is if people needed something more to do things in game. Like raid bosses, or harder monsters. Being that the animals in this game are very easy to kill, buffs are not required (heck armor isn't even required).

I understand that some people that are currently playing see this in disbelief because they have a hard time killing squirrels in Xsyon. But that is because Xsyon has breed the normal PVE (and PVP) players away from the game, and we are left with players that don't normally do combat, or PVP.
If Xsyon were to market back to the normal public and get active population they would see that the normal player (not just advanced players) are not challenged by PVE.

I hope this explains it better, if not please just ask and I can help clear it up a bit.

[znaiika]

No to "pvp zones", the real problem is the skill decay system, because of it people don't get past soft cap and leave. before skill decay you had more people playing even before pve server added.
Let people get their skills up to permanent 80 and other 20 to play with decay to be able to work on HP, if you really want to have this skill decay system.

[GreenSpade]

the majority stating that the main reason they play 90% of the time on Peace is because there are more people there to be social with.

I still see the retention rate the same as if the servers were not split. My observations made during the dissing of these abandoned camps is the same on either server...they get to a point of getting mats up to Moderate to High, then see what it takes to get higher and they stop.

Gruu

I fully agree with what you've said here, I don't see the server growth that was promised, but rather some people who used to be a problem in the past that got pvp'd off the server have returned, while others like myself who played this game every day have quit due to how the survivor aspect of this game has been thrown under the bus.

I see 2-4 member tribes on pvp, I see some on pve too, I hear some people talk on pvp, I hear even more talk on pve. But when you travel the lands of both, you meet no one, you see no one and you find abandon tribes as far as the eye can see, like gruu says, most of them not making it past 50-60 quality items before quitting.

In my opinion splitting the server has done nothing positive, since the numbers are roughly the same or less but the majority of people I used to play with have all quit due to wanting to play on pvp, but everyone actually being on pve due to their friends being on there, so pvp seemed extra dead then the "normal" dead fish that is this game. The tryhards continued to play pvp and most quit, the rest caved in and joined people they knew on pve since they didnt want to play alone in pvp.

Its too bad cuz me and alot of friends really wanted to like this game, the whole survivor concept is awesome, but if a dev is going to remove so many peoples hard work by making the server unplayable due to splitting an already limited population in two, in a bad 20%/80% split, then I'm not sure why myself or anyone else would continue to play pvp, put effort into this game, or continue to pay for this when its obviously the non-supported server thats been abandon and forsaken by the dev as a "not wanted" thing. I know I'm not the only person here that likes the massively multiplayer part of massively multiplayer online game so I'm not sure why it was ever thought to be a good idea to take a population of under 200 and split it up, as if making the game seem more dead would attract more players? While demanding they pay a monthly in order to actually play on a server with no people on a game that *looks* to the average person like its about to go bankrupt and shutdown its servers any day now?

Let me tell ya about a story: I was on pvp and I met this first day newbie, he had been playing for 4 hours, really liked the survivor concept of the game, but after talking in global and finding out the population of pvp is under 50 players he felt like it wasnt the game for him since it seemed like this game, that has been out for years, is dying. He didnt want to play for his entire gameplay without other player interaction. He asked me what the likelyhood of the company going under was and canceling the game, I told him it wasnt very likely at all since its 1 dev thats been working on this for years and the server costs are much lower then the subscription costs of people currently playing so I couldn't see him shutting it down. He then showed me some of the other "survivor" games (the same catagory game as this one) and there are some great games out there *WITH THIS EXACT CONCEPT* minus the tribe aspect, that have a larger budget, a bigger dev crew and more time to make flashy high quality graphics.

Why do I bring this up conversation about other games?
If this is being marketed as a survivor game, but in actual fact its not and its a building game with very little survivor aspects to it, people are going to see through that VERY quickly and get bored really quickly. They'll see through it and get bored quicker if the population is nonexistent since they don't have friends to keep them playing.

If someone is trying this as a new game from steam, what makes you think they wouldn't try the OTHER games in the same catagory? The same guy I was talking to, like myself, was looking for a good survivor game that didn't feel like a cheap minecraft clone. This means he was trying **MANY DIFFERENT GAMES**, all survivor games like this one, he had an opinion of over a dozen survivor games, some I'd never heard of, but the point is that he came to xsyon through other survivor games, in the hopes of playing a survivor based game. I have him added to my steam, but he doesnt want to play xsyon anymore untill either the skill cap is removed for free to play, or is removed once you've payed for the game (and not re-added when your sub expires) since having this kind of handycap on pvp makes pay-to-win-by-month the only way to actually play, making yet another detour to play the server or even this game as a whole. In todays gaming market, you don't charge monthly fees to have benifits like this when the game is this dead, is promotes people leaving your game and the continued death of it, since they see no one else into it or playing & paying, why would they on a server with zero population?

Its like a pve dayz server, whos going to honestly play that? Not the large majority of the dayz population you can be sure of that! Maybe some people could just be in it for the zombie shooting, but your talking about a much smaller, more specialized group of people who are not actually there for the survivor aspect of the game, the thing this game is supposed to be based upon, but are rather here for some casual fun like "nazi zombies" where the vibe is "who cares if they die" they can just start another game casually and not lose anything important. This is not how a survivor gamer thinks, this is not how a dayz player thinks... My suggestion? Re-label the game as a building game or something so people don't get confused when they log in to play a survivor game and get "the sims: cavemen scavengers". Or actually start supporting a pvp server verse throwing events only on pve and only supporting pve and only having guides on pve, maybe come up with some content for pvp to make it worth playing over pve. Or on the flip side, having a place to pvp on pve would be good, like in the extreme areas its free pvp, alternatively why don't you just expand the mist? I can obviously see the game goes waay past the mist boarders, so why not just cut the mist back a zone around the whole map and call it a lawless area, past extreme danger, lawless danger, with no pve laws to prevent you from pvping people so you can kill others or spar or do whatever you like.

Theres lots of things that could've been done to fix the issue instead of splitting servers but now that we're here, something needs to be done to balance the two, since just saying to people "wait for steam release and hope more players" isnt a great plan... your games already on steam... people are already coming here from steam... they're already finding it through survivor games and when they find out its not one they leave the game in the same nonexistant population they found it in... so why do you think a steam release is going to help that at all? People are going to find your game at the same rate they are now, this game is OBVIOUS to anyone looking for a survivor game on steam.... so if its so easy to find ALREADY what makes you think steam is going to make it more obvious enough that people are going to look past the fact its a dead game and continue playing anyways? Just doesnt make any logical sense to think people would STAY in the game due to a steam release..... Exposure is NOT the problem here, plenty of people find this game, the problem is they don't stay... thats what needs to be solved here, not more advertisement, not more exposure, this game needs to focus more on keeping players then lure'n people with exposure and advertisements and minor patch updates that don't address the core issues that have been a problem since the server was split in two.

~Saintzoilus
*Warrior's Village

[znaiika]

If pvp players can't gather-up in one server, then I don't know how to call such community, clearly you can see who can support the game, don't ever call your self a pvper then.
Before server split we had lots of conversations on how to deal with pvp vs pve, one of those conversations was to divide server in to two, mist side pvp and current pve, some people did not want that, if Xsyon decide to do this, both sides have to have same of everything, pvp side should not have extra or better things on pvp side because they think "risk vs reward" this is too old saying, if you really want to join one community, you have to share equal rights.
I still think pve and pvp servers should be separated.

[MrDDT]

I think splitting a small player base was one of the worst ideas I could think of in a game period.
It is very clear that splitting the servers did not work in anyway, shape, or form.

[GreenSpade]

I think splitting a small player base was one of the worst ideas I could think of in a game period.
It is very clear that splitting the servers did not work in anyway, shape, or form.

I don't often agree with you but we're on the same page here, I honestly do not see any upside aside of less complaints about being killed by players with 3 times or more hps then them, such as yourself or dang.

With that being said, I think less people have come back for the "safty" of pve then the amount of people who have all quit due to feeling as if their years of effort had been wasted by the choice to make pvp a dead nonexistant server by splitting the two.

It doesnt address the core problem that is causing the massive amounts of people who find this game, to all quit after trying it.

Again the problem is not exposure, plenty of people find this game, but the large majority of them all quit due to the GAME and not the lack of exposure or steam advertisement, since people are ALREADY coming here from steam. So this just proves the problem is internal in the game and not external in lack of people knowing about it, advertisement or exposure, since this game has plenty of all 3, but without a game to actually keep people continuing to play, those 3 things mean absolutely nothing.


If pvp players can't gather-up in one server, then I don't know how to call such community, clearly you can see who can support the game, don't ever call your self a pvper then.
Before server split we had lots of conversations on how to deal with pvp vs pve, one of those conversations was to divide server in to two, mist side pvp and current pve, some people did not want that, if Xsyon decide to do this, both sides have to have same of everything, pvp side should not have extra or better things on pvp side because they think "risk vs reward" this is too old saying, if you really want to join one community, you have to share equal rights.
I still think pve and pvp servers should be separated.

By what logic can you say that pvp doesnt deserve extra things, but you think pve deserves the extra thing of not being killed by other players? So pve gets a bonus ontop of pvp but pvp doesnt deserve anything extra? Think about that logic for a second.


They're both two different servers at this point, so why should they NOT have different extra things about them? As I already pointed out PvE has the different extra thing of no player vs player combat, so why should there not in turn be something extra to pvp to justify playing there?

How do you think that its pvp that can't group into a community when its over 50% of the community that left the server and went to pve when things split? The other 25% went to pve to stay with their friends and the other 25% stayed on pvp and eventually quit due to feeling as if the game designer doesnt care about pvp at all, but only cares about pve to try and get more money out of people like laughingoak who quit the game but want to complain about how they would come back and play if pvp was removed. Dudes like him got pvp'd off the server for a reason and its insane to see that people with such bad attitudes towards this game and the people in it are able to make suggestions that the game dev listens to, while they're not even subscribed to the game. Yes oak came back, but how many people quit in his place? At least 50 people I know of, I've *NEVER* seen again since the server split, so to me, the split only spells death of pvp and half the community... sure you might restore that half with some people who where waiting for pve, but it doesnt negate the fact that the majority of pvp diehard, all the survivor players, have all quit and moved onto another game... Only people left here are "the sims:caveman builder: and their friends who enjoy talking with them more then actually playing this game. Should that not be seriously looked at as a problem? That the only lure to stay continuing playing this game is other players you may meet that become your friends and NOT the game itself? Think about that.

As I mentioned before, you may be able to get 25-50 people on a PVE Dayz server, but that in no way means that the majority of players want to play a pve dayz server over a pvp, but rather means that the pvp players are elsewhere, possibly another game. Just cuz some people are actually on it, doesn't mean that that speaks for 100% of the population when those apposed have all quit. By splitting the server in two, this game has alienated the community into supporting only one game type to the point where its no longer worth anyones effort to be on pvp since everyones quit, theres zero numbers and theres no beifits or upside to being there. Again don't confuse the subject and think its what "everyone wants" but instead, everyone who didn't want it has quit and left since this game has refused to support the type of gameplay we've all loved for years, in favour of a dulled down version of "The Sims:Caveman Builder" for casual players. All the hardcore survivor players look at this like a joke, or a game that is about to go under and shutdown its servers any day. (Even tho I know this isnt a reality and the servers won't get shutdown since the server costs to host a game with under 200 players must be around the costs of 2-4 subscriptions, so everything past that is profit) Doesn't change the fact that people from steam, people who find this via survivor game serch, people who find it in general are all going to look at pvp in this exact same way, as a dead game about to go under... People REALLY watch for that on steam cuz it happens all the time, people get excited about a beta game or something pre-release like this one (even tho we're what 4+ years deep?) only to have it tank and their investment into the game wasted... So why would someone invest into a pre-beta game that looks like its about to tank and may not be around next month for your next sub?

[znaiika]

Now we have equal choice for either pve or pvp servers, why do you think people choose pve over pvp server?
You can make your statements long and sweet but people choose pve over pvp for some reason.
People did not leave over night, it took some time for them to leave, every time Xsyon made changes because someone did not want everyone else to have same items, skills, etc... Xsyon made baskets decay some people left, Xsyon removed old saw blades some people left, Xsyon made totem decay some people left, Xsyon made skill decay some people left, I can go on and on and on, the fact is, maybe there is a chance that there is someone who don't want Xsyon to succeed?
This game becoming so heavily depended on gear I am starting to think it turns more and more to a gear grind game like tab target games were you win by having best gear.
You are talking about survival pvp dos not make any game as survival.
PvE and PvP should have equal bonuses.

[MrDDT]

Anytime combat is broken and not fixed, PVPers will quit and likely will not play. They are also more dependent on other people playing.

When you have 50 to 100 people playing and you split that to say best case 50 to 25 people per server. It will have a major impact on PVP.
It's common sense.
People didn't leave with totem decay, people came back. Not sure how much you have been playing, or what you know but you can simply ask in the questions and answers to the dev on what changes he thought effected the server the greatest and he will likely say that was one of the best ones for the server, along with carts.

You make me laugh about the gear. I could kill any player in game 1 v 1 naked with a shovel. I can kill any animal in the game naked and with my preorder weapon. Saying it's gear dependent makes me laugh pretty hard. Along with so many other incorrect statements like people leaving because of XYZ.
Xsyon didn't remove old saw blades and people left, he put them back in the game. When Xsyon first removed old saw blades few people even knew about the change for a long time. It wasnt until months later that people started to cry about it, then he put it back in the game. Did you see people come back in mass because of it? No. You are trying to say all these things were bad for the game, but the sad part is the data doesn't support your thoughts.
Baskets do not decay just FYI.

If you played the game at the start people did leave overnight. Major things that effected the # of people were 12 hour server roll backs, GM abuse, and massive server downtime. These happened within the first few days of release of the game. There were 1000s of people playing this game.

Znaiika, there is equal choice, I agree. If the game would had started with PVP or PVE servers I would have said go for it. But once you are down to 50 to 100 active players. You don't split that group up, that is just silly and one of the worst ideas ever.

Sadly I think the best thing for the game is a fresh start server once steam comes out, that is mixed PVP and PVE areas. I doubt we will see the second part, but the first we might see as a 3rd server IF steam does ok. Is my guess.

[znaiika]

I would not call this a split of population, people simply chose where to play freely, and as you can see people choose pve over pvp, people were split all along they just needed a choice, which finally came with two servers.

[GreenSpade]

Znaiika I don't agree with a single thing you've said here and some of your claims based on opinion rather then reality are kind of amusing.

When your down to 50 players, there is NOT a "choice" of what server to go to, if you ask people, the majority of them will tell you they'd rather play pvp but they're on pve due to that being the place where the population is and NOT the better server. I can think of at least 10 people who have told me that, roughly 1/5th the servers population.

You honestly think people didn't quit instantly over the server switch? Are you daft or are you one of those crybabys who came back once pve was released and wasnt even playing before the server split like oak? I have *NEVER* seen at least 50 people again since the *FIRST* day of the server split. Thats not *over time* thats in a very short amount of time after the server split, the mass majority of people that *I* played with who enjoyed sparing, dueling, hunting and pvping, they all quit cuz they didnt want to play on a server that was MORE dead then the deadfish game this was before the servers split, the population has NOT got any better, as I said before, all the pvp people have quit, so there is no "two sides" to this anymore since all the people apposed to the idea have left the game and moved onto other games, like myself, I barely play this anymore due to the feeling that its not worth my time to continue to play on pvp with 10 other players, on a non-supported pvp server that the game dev has forsaken by removing the population in favour of a "couple" people coming back for pve.

Personally I don't think the people coming back for pve was worth watching all the diehard survivor/pvp players quit the game, sure you may have replaced the population that left, with others who support pve, but that doesnt change the fact that there is NOT a free choice between the two severs, every new player I meet lately starts on pvp but ends up on pve due to population and not wanting to play a MMO game alone.

[Xsyon]

I am going to clear the air with the facts and lock this thread.

The facts are as follows:

The game population had been declining steadily and reached an all time low right before the launch of the PvE server.

The active population has never dropped below 140 players. This active player count does not include free players that come and go and obvious alt accounts.

With the opening of the PvE server, the active population increased by 50% and has stayed at around that level. The active numbers on the the PvE server alone in terms of daily peak number of players, daily total number of players and total hours played per week have been higher than the numbers on the lone server before the PvE server was opened.

These numbers on the PvP server are lower. Overall numbers across the board have fluctuated but remained at about 50% higher than before the 2 servers existed.

Player retention has also been noticeably higher since the PvE server launched, with more players subscribing for 3 or more months.

Aside from the hectic launch period, there were 3 main updates that caused a heavy decrease in active game population.

1) Totem and tribe decay with the advent of revenants.
2) Skill and stat balancing update.
3) Opening the game to Free to Play.

Personally I feel the two content updates improved Xsyon. Tribe decay is necessary and opening up the game to free players had to be tried in today's environment. Some players did return with these updates, but not enough to compensate for those that left. The PvE server launch did cause some players to leave, but those that returned more than compensated for the loss.

Without any notion of the population on either server, 80% of new players go directly to the PvE server and never try the PvP server. Players are choosing PvE, not being driven to it.

Regarding players coming from Steam, the traffic is currently negligible and accounts for less than 1% of traffic to this site. The reason is that Xsyon is simply approved but not launched and no longer open for voting in the Greenlight program. Most of our Steam traffic came during the first month of being in the Greenlight program and more than 99% of Steam users have not visited our page yet. That is a fact. (Valve boasts over 75 million Steam users of which only 45,000 have visited our page).

In the past two years, the game population declined noticeably during the summer months. This summer it did not. Even with far less website traffic this summer, the active game population remained steady.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A lot of misconceptions are posted on this forums. I want it to be clear that I have access to a lot of information that most of you do not have. Many players rely on what they hear from other players or read on these forums, but this needs to be taken into account:

55,000 players have signed up on these forums.
3,500 have posted at least once.
1,000 have posted more than 10 times.

Most forum users that have posted have supplied very little in terms of feedback as the forum has been dominated by the most vocal players.

At the same time, I have received emails offering feedback, suggestions and opinions from over 10,000 players and potential players.

I also have the direct game data and stats, which often do not agree with perceptions being promoted here.

I have made some risky decisions in the past, some that I felt were necessary but the risk did not pay off.

The launch of the PvE server was not one of these decisions. The population was boosted when it was much needed. The numbers were close to what I expected. The two server setup has confirmed for me that 80% of new players choose PvE over PvP. Most importantly, two or more servers are required for the future and now I've had time to streamline the process of dealing with multiple servers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One of the main intentions of having separate servers was to cater to PvP players by having a War server where conflict is allowed, even encouraged. I expected PvPers to be happy with this and I am very willing to now remove safe zones or make changes that would allow for more conflict if there was a demand for it.

The most positive change since the PvE server launch is that player conflicts that were causing almost daily disruptions to development almost entirely ceased. Although some systems I've worked on have not yet been patched or even discussed, I have been able to code more in the past 6 months without distractions than at any other time in the past 4 years.

PvP is not 'unsupported'. Both servers are updated equally and the features and improvements I've been working on this year are the same that I would have worked on if the PvE server had not been launched.

When the PvE server launched, I did notice several hard core PvP players cancelled their subscriptions. Shortly after the launch, I received multiple complaints from new players on the PvP server stating that they were being harassed and felt unwelcome. For those that want to PvP, you could have stuck around, welcomed players and kept the PvP server active by encouraging new players to play with you, rather than drive them away both in game and by these rants on the forums. You also could have done this to show me that a PvP server is desired and viable for Xsyon.

I set up the servers to give players a choice. If you want more players to play on your side, be it War or Peace, that is up to you!