[help] Increase multiplayer numbers?

[Skuilla]

Hi,
some week ago I restart to play wesnoth and the number of players in multiplayer mode is decreased a lot.
I think is a very interesting and deep game, but is not the kind of game that people want beacuse: is slow, the graphic is all about pixel, and is bad sponsored.
If someone want to invest in this game, it needs some marketing boost and a community that support making it appealing.
For example could be interesting adding new units maybe one unit every 2 months per faction, like the heroes in game like overwatch or hearos of the storm.
Another things is adding for example new maps and new mode. We love the game playing ever the same units from maybe 10 years, can you think how can be exciting with a good support?
At the end of the speech, these are my thought, I know is easy speak but very difficult do this thing with no money, but if the game stay still, the number of player is fated to decrease.

[dwarftough]

Adding new units is a double-edged thing. Developers should take care of balance, users should learn how to play for and againts a new faction. There's the Ageless Era with tons of units and I don't like it much, at least it was my first impression.

Adding maps, however, could be quite a good idea, I think. Although even now there are maps with an absolute popularity dominance (e.g. Isar).

Also, I've read somewhere on the forum that the number of players was possibly reduced by requiring a forum account (you can't play lobby without an acc today).

[Skuilla]

Yeah, I know the drawback if balancing, obviously the effort in order to relaunch this game must be huge.
Another thing interesting could be other game mode, for example in other games there are match in you must defend some point of interest in the maps, or dominance match in which more point you control more point you gain etc.
I don't know if a forum account could be the cause, but seems unreasonable that a player left the game because he need an account in a forum, it require 3 minutes of your life.
Another thing, I don't know if there are other games like Wesnoth with more users.

[dwarftough]

I agree absolutely about adding new modes. There's some different modes now: survival, MP campaigns, the Auction-X map (leaderkill but at the beginning the central player harasses all the others). And I think that getting more is undoubtfully a good way to make game better.

[Pentarctagon]

Adding new units wouldn't be something to happen at all frequently, both because of the balancing concern and also because of backwards compatibility.

Adding new maps would definitely be more possible to do, though hopefully they'd have more variance than there is currently - a 2-4 player RPG/survival would be pretty nice, for example.

It's unlikely Wesnoth would ever be able to match the pace of new content of games like Overwatch though. The difference between a group of volunteers working on this in our free time and a multi-million dollar company with full time employees is pretty huge.

[Skuilla]

In conclusion, this is the truth:

The difference between a group of volunteers working on this in our free time and a multi-million dollar company with full time employees is pretty huge.

For this reason, I think the number continue to decrease in the future.

[Pentarctagon]

I don't think it's true that you need to be as large as Overwatch to be successful - there are plenty of games that are successful without those advantages - just that you shouldn't expect Wesnoth to be able to match Overwatch's pace.

[Skuilla]

I don't think it's true that you need to be as large as Overwatch to be successful - there are plenty of games that are successful without those advantages - just that you shouldn't expect Wesnoth to be able to match Overwatch's pace.

I do not expect this, but hope to do a 1vs1 not waiting half an hour every time in order to find a player to play with. Generally there is few 1vs1 match in the server at the moment.

[DarkHorse]

For sure player numbers have declined drastically since 1.14 was released, which is a great shame. Why is that? I'd put it down to two factors:
First compulsory registration to access the multiplayer official server most certainly does reduce player numbers as the hassle and delay of registering for a game you don't know if you'll even like is a hurdle many people won't cross when they can just do something else instead. No point blaming the potential players for not doing it, it's human nature at work: if you defy it, you're game dies.
Second, most of the player base comes and goes from the game, so some vast number of people have been lost because they log in to 1.12, find there's maybe 3 players there total, and then assume the game has died. Even now, pretty much every day you'll see someone log in, plaintively ask in chat why the game is dead, then disappear never to play again. Sure, there's a little note after all the usual blurb mentioning 1.14, but it couldn't be made much less conspicuous if you tried, could it? Few people actually read that blurb consciously. Next time a new version comes out, make the announcement BIG.

[Ravana]

I agree with the point about 1.14 note in 1.12. Currently message of the day does not support any kind of formatting, and from what I have heard could be difficult to add.

[DarkHorse]

hmmm, an always-logged-in bot on all old servers that posts msgs? Just a thought, idk what is possible.

[octalot]

An always-logged-in bot that's playing a game with title "everyone's on 1.14", on a map whose preview looks like the Wesnoth logo?

[josteph]

IIRC, if you connect to the MP servers with 1.14.5 you get a message "Please upgrade to 1.14.7". Can we make 1.12.6 show the same message? It's an actual dialog box the player needs to click through, much more obvious than the motd or an always-on game.

[Ravana]

There is nothing displayed for 1.14.5+dev at least.

(based on Date: Fri Feb 8 17:42:03 2019 +0100 with 2 custom commits on top)

[C4nt3r]

Just asking. Is not easier to list all MP games, with a column with wesnoth version? Or game checks for updates when enter in multiplayer, and show a message warning about?

Anyway, I don't think the problem (if exists a problem) of multiplayer could be that. Maybe people is lazy to read the list of games, and just wanna a Quick Play button, is how things works today.