It's not dead yet, use to be much more right around the official release. 11,000 and now it's down to 3k-4k and it may go down even more if we don't get anything promised in the EVE trailers in the next couple of months.

I really don't like the way Planetside 2 looks. It just looks crappy to me for some reason...

A complete analysis OP you have my like and my respect already.
But, what I really think this game is lacking is not player base... is player retention...

A complete analysis OP you have my like and my respect already.
But, what I really think this game is lacking is not player base... is player retention...

I'd say Burnout is an issue the toxic state of these forums doesn't help...

Stuff

I'm really getting tired of all these "Dust 514 is dead!"-posts so I did some research and compared the player numbers of Dust 514 with other F2P-games.

let the chaff fall away.

Damage control to the rescue!

But seriously... Everyone who left, won't read your ****, so perhaps you could take it to Reddit where group-think is much more appreciated.

Can you think of a way to refute his writing without accusing him of being a CCP shill? Or making incorrect use of an ellipses? (If you want to indicate a pause in speaking, you're supposed to use two dashes like so: "But seriously--can you think of a...)

English is such a precious resource, but you people are ruining it for everyone!

Now this wouldn't be fun at all if we don't compare it with numbers of the big games, would it? We'll go with the latest Call of Duty for this one. Stats are easy to find because it's a steamworks game and the Multiplayer is listed on it's own. Now look at that:

http://steamcharts.com/app/202990

It peaks at 20.000 players online at the same time. A multimillion dollar game from a big publisher has the same player numbers like Warframe, a small F2P-title. We can conclude that Warframe is doing pretty damn well then.

Not to defend the COD games or anything, but those numbers are only for the PC version. The console versions have vastly more active players than the PC version, at likely a ratio of 20:1 (or more, since it's unlikely too many PC elitists will be playing a COD game).

Just look at the sales. PC version of BO2 sold less than a million, however the combined PS3 and 360 sales is almost 25 million.

360 sales - http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70716/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/
PS3 sales - http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70715/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/
PC sales - http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70717/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/


I would guess that both the console versions of the latest COD game vary from 150-200k active players at one time, possibly more when you consider that almost 25 million copies have been sold and it is still one of the most popular online games in circulation today.

It's not dead yet, use to be much more right around the official release. 11,000 and now it's down to 3k-4k and it may go down even more if we don't get anything promised in the EVE trailers in the next couple of months.

Check my post. We did what you suggest already.

Second, lay off the "English is written in stone" BS. Heck, the word Shill is a 20th century word. Do you think you should be using something more ... orthodox?

Also, the word ellipses is plural.

MWO has been dead for a while, and Dust is following suit fairly rapidly.

Not to defend the COD games or anything, but those numbers are only for the PC version. The console versions have vastly more active players than the PC version, at likely a ratio of 20:1 (or more, since it's unlikely too many PC elitists will be playing a COD game).

Just look at the sales. PC version of BO2 sold less than a million, however the combined PS3 and 360 sales is almost 25 million.

360 sales - http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70716/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/
PS3 sales - http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70715/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/
PC sales - http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70717/call-of-duty-black-ops-ii/


I would guess that both the console versions of the latest COD game vary from 150-200k active players at one time, possibly more when you consider that almost 25 million copies have been sold and it is still one of the most popular online games in circulation today.

The number of people playing dust will drop considerably after the release of ps4

I kinda doubt it. It's not that everybody will suddenly sell his PS3 just because the PS4 is out. Even more people will also wait for the PS4 Slim until they buy it. And there are also people who want to play Dust. I kinda doubt they suddenly stop playing it because there's a new console on the market. My guess is, that the release of the PS4 will hardly have any impact at all on Dust.

I kinda doubt it. It's not that everybody will suddenly sell his PS3 just because the PS4 is out. Even more people will also wait for the PS4 Slim until they buy it. And there are also people who want to play Dust. I kinda doubt they suddenly stop playing it because there's a new console on the market. My guess is, that the release of the PS4 will hardly have any impact at all on Dust.

I kinda doubt it. It's not that everybody will suddenly sell his PS3 just because the PS4 is out. Even more people will also wait for the PS4 Slim until they buy it. And there are also people who want to play Dust. I kinda doubt they suddenly stop playing it because there's a new console on the market. My guess is, that the release of the PS4 will hardly have any impact at all on Dust.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL

u living in a bubble?

GTA 5 SP alone took 1000 ppl off DUST which btw is at 3000-3500 ppl NOT 4000-4500 anymore with the release of gta.

The ps4 and Xboxone both being sold out disagrees with you, they littary can't build enough of then fast enough to fill demand. Your deludeding youself if u think this console cycle will repeat the pattern of the last one

everyone i came to dust with has pre ordered the ps4, none of them will be playing dust when ps4 is released.

Player counts started dropping before GTA was released. If you look at the eve offline activity graph you'll see where the player count started sloping down...it was at the release of 1.4.

Yeah whole reason why I never use Call of Duty when running numbers around.

While we are at it, lets add this game http://steamcharts.com/app/212070 Star Conflict.

Player counts started dropping before GTA was released. If you look at the eve offline activity graph you'll see where the player count started sloping down...it was at the release of 1.4.

Ha! You would have had me if you hadn't added added a second ellipsis into the mix, thus making my usage of the term
anticipatory.

Anyway, do you live in the west coast or something? Shill is very much a part of the Eastern American Lexicon.

To be honest, player counts have been dropping since release, but you are right. The major, recent, player drop is directly due to the 1.4 release.

Hail AR 514. Hail king AR.

Player counts started dropping before GTA was released. If you look at the eve offline activity graph you'll see where the player count started sloping down...it was at the release of 1.4.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL

u living in a bubble?

GTA 5 SP alone took 1000 ppl off DUST which btw is at 3000-3500 ppl NOT 4000-4500 anymore with the release of gta.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLL

u living in a bubble?

GTA 5 SP alone took 1000 ppl off DUST which btw is at 3000-3500 ppl NOT 4000-4500 anymore with the release of gta.

stats and stuff

What about War Thunder?

I was just reading reviews of MWO and wow...

I was so looking forward to that but it seems the developers make CCP look great in comparison. P2W with purchased mechs being far better than earned mechs, only two modules worth equipping due to their OP quality, no squading lobby for solo players, two game modes (ok, we've got the same issue), and a worse grind for what low level toys you can earn in game.

The capper for me though is the loss of immersion with third person view.


All that makes me appreciate DUST more.

Not to derail the thread any further, but:

http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/62859/origin-of-the-word-shill-shillaber
http://oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/shill

Both of these sources list Shill as originating in the early 20th century, even as late as the 1940's, so clearly even the english that you use, is pretty recent slang.

Also, your useage of the english language doesn't even follow your own rules. You can't have an ellipses. I thought you'd have understood that. Anticipatory, lol!

Now, I'm done correcting your hypocrisy. I merely wanted to point out that you should lay off ragging on people's unconventional use of the language, as you, yourself seem to be doing the same.

Team Fortress 2?

When is a game dead for you? Really? MWO has about 3000 active players during peak times. I don't see how it's dead: It's still perfectly possible to play it. You'll always find people to play with, without having to wait. How is that dead? How is Dust following it quickly? Do you really need more than 50.000 players until you say "Yes. It's doing pretty good."? Really. What do you want before you say a game isn't dead?

Do you want to see how a real dead game looks like?

http://steamcharts.com/app/96300
http://steamcharts.com/app/18110
http://steamcharts.com/app/70000

This is dead. At some times you don't even find enough players to fill one 32 player server. Sometimes you find one server but it's already full and you can't play. A game is dead when you can't boot it up and just play. Dust 514 isn't like this at all. Neither is MWO nor Blacklight. These games still have thousands of active players.

MWO is dreaming to have 3000 players active. Even back at it's peak, it had less than 6k concurrent. The population dropped into the 2k range before they pulled the plug on the pop meter - seems familiar doesn't it?

A game is dead to me when the devs clearly have lost focus and aren't doing anything to improve the playerbase, and the game is essentially so stagnant that only those who've invested much time choose to hang around. Throwing good time after bad so to speak. MWO was there quite some time ago, and Dust is there now.

I would love to see where you got these numbers. I couldn't find any. That's why I had to compare the only numbers I could find to get some kind of a guess.



How aren't they improving the player base? People just want everything at the same time. Fix this, fix that, add this. It's just not possible to do all this so fast. But they are improving. They even decided to go with the monthly patch release because the players wanted it. They do what they can to make the game better. Making a game isn't as easy as many people here think it is. Of course: It's doubtful that everything in the daily life of the staff is perfect and there may be some things which they could do better. But it's work. If you think you could do better why don't you write an application to CCP and work for free then? I'm sure they would love to have experienced people who don't want to be paid.

Dust 514 isn't dead until the developer decides to thrash the whole project. And for some reason even games with as little as 250 - 1500 players online at peak times still get updates.

Would you really want CCP to release every racial suit instantly, no matter how broken the stuff is? Do you want them to release a half finished vehicle update? Would you want that, when you complain that Dust wasn't finished when it was released? I doubt this would do anybody good. I mean what are we getting next? Better tutorials, Corp roles and maybe even a squad finder. This will improve the existing gameplay. I for one would like to see new content though, but the new content will probably even more fun when we have stuff like a squad finder in place.

Well, I'll answer your second question first. They aren't improving the playerbase based on these numbers:

http://eve-offline.net/?server=dust

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.

That is a lot of blah, blah, blah, just to say ;

- We still are in the Beta stages of the game, that so far have lasted nearly 2 years.

Lets be honest, CCP don't release "New Builds", they release new Beta Versions.

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.

Nope, its a lot of blah blah blah just to say: Your fixation on labels here is misplaced, whether CCP calls Dust514 beta or not is completely irrelevant. You're staring at a round hole and a square hole while holding a triangle in your hand. Stop trying so hard to make it work, its not going to.

You bring some very reasonable points that make me feel assured that you are the right man for the CPM position; Can you convince Iron Wolf Saber to follow in your footsteps?

+1 on the wisdom, and furthermore, on a very constructive comment

And then.. MAYBE.. finally they will try the square shape.

Just downloaded PS2. Anyone wanna squad up with me?

If I wanted a square, I'd go play Battlefield. If I wanted a circle, I'd go play Call of Duty. I want a triangle, damn it. A triangle!

So no - I don't want CCP copying squares. Or copying circles. I want them to make their own game, and I want it to be really awesome. The first step is to just stop trying to pigeon hole the project, its a senseless exercise to sit around bemoaning the fact that it doesn't fit neatly into a category that's easy for you to recognize.

Sure, TR Connery?

New Conglomerate Connery. DamnItImDead is my character name.

Been a fitting name for me so far.

Wouldn't mind creating a new character though. Haven't done much in game so far.

http://www.planetside-universe.com/character-5428082729958406129.php?tab=noctempre

Not as great as I would like but my first month was terrible and I've been climbing my way up.