Excellent work, good sir.

Now this isn't going to change the behavior of those who've made a conscious decision to try to tear down the game, the community, and CCP on their way out the door.....but at least now we know that such displays are rooted in machismo, not even some semi-factually informed sense of self-righteousness.

For the rest of the players that have a more open mind, at least this research should demonstrate that your time and efforts here are certainly well-spent. Dust isn't going anywhere.....I've been saying this for some time, CCP knows this because they have even better numbers at their disposal. All of the ****ty jokes about "bands playing on the titanic" aside, the ship has been remarkably stable. In fact, the better analogy is that this vessel hasn't even left port yet - bear in mind CCP hasn't even begun to explore growth opportunities through any kind of conventional marketing, except for the smattering of in-development press that most games expose themselves through.

If we had right now on our PS3's the vision of Dust outlined in past fanfests, and CCP had already advertised the game on TV, all over the web, in stores, theaters, malls, or other various assorted viral marketing....and we STILL ended up with our current PCU count - at that point everyone can objectively and scientifically declare the game an abject failure and feel pretty damn smug about it. Now why some of you take perverse delight in being right about such things is a different matter completely - but in the meantime, I greatly appreciate the rest of you that have learned to HTFU and not give in to the metric ass-ton of hurfblurf that continues to circulate.

I continue to hear almost daily the endless nonsense about "this game is still in beta, what a joke" and "It's a RELEASED game, why is it so awful".......but the reality is that Dust 514 is neither. Regardless of what CCP wants to label it (for any myriad number of reasons) the bottom line is that Dust isn't going to feel completely finished for years and years and years to come - just as EVE Online in many ways still feels incomplete. And this perpetually unfinished state doesn't mean its not a game we can play and enjoy in the meantime, either.

So this leaves us with a choice. We can get bored, frustrated (often rightfully so) and go play other games, and this is of course completely healthy. There will be a lot of great games coming out this holiday season, GO PLAY THEM. :) I will be too. But for those of us that also stick around to play Dust and continue giving constructive criticism to help CCP, we can rest a little easy knowing that the doomsday prophets have a very shaky podium to stand on.

......it turns out after all that the "band playing on the deck of the titanic" is really just group huddled in the corner consumed by their own bitterness and paranoia, imagining that their fantasy game world is sinking under the waves. I'm still trying to figure out why they're putting themselves through such misery, let alone trying to rope other people into their sad world. To them I say - relax a little. Grab the prettiest girl you can find, get laid in the backseat of your Albany Emperor, and run her over when you're done to get your money back. You'll feel better. Trust me.