Deke Young tracking the USA-5 server launch

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

12 hours after the launch we have a 2nd player make Page and started a faction in House 10.

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

20 hours into the launch and there are 2,978 players on the server.

Same 2 factions as last night.

2 Squires
2 Gentleman/Lady
7 Aldermen

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

24 hours into the server launch there are 3,221 total players

1 Knight
1 Squire
1 Page
3 Gentlemen/Lady
7 Aldermen

We are up to 3 factions in 2 houses

At this point during the GC-4 launch there were 4 pages and 4 factions with 4,847 total players on the server.

USA-4 is both slower and smaller than the GC-4 launch.

[WaywardChampion]

24 hours into the server launch there are 3,221 total players

1 Knight
1 Squire
1 Page
3 Gentlemen/Lady
7 Aldermen

We are up to 3 factions in 2 houses

At this point during the GC-4 launch there were 4 pages and 4 factions with 4,847 total players on the server.

USA-4 is both slower and smaller than the GC-4 launch.

Sadly, it doesn't even compare with the launch of GC1 where there were over 10k players spawned into that world in the first 4 hours or even for that matter of the previous USA servers.

FF has lost so many players due to these ridiculous new ERA rules that it isn't even funny. About 3/4's of the dedicated SHK players that I used to play with on the AGE worlds are no longer active and it is hard to find enough players that you can actually trust to fill a faction.

I had hoped that FF would actually listen to us players, and modify these ERA rules to make the game fun again, but they don't seem to care about anything we have to say.

I wont even go into their lack of capability to monitor and detect multiple account cheating.

If I could offer FF some advice it would be this.

The game was much more successful when FF had multiple smaller cultural specific worlds under the age rules than they do with these huge empty multinational worlds that encourage multi-account cheating under the current ERA rules.

Multiple smaller worlds make it more difficult for any one group of players to dominate every new map, and the smaller maps seem to hold players interest longer. Also opening new cultural specific maps would likely attract new players.

A few new map types would likely be well received, as many players a getting bored with the current map selections.

Also, the honor costs for attacking other players is still much too high, making it much too costly for most players to participate effectively in a war. As a result most maps are abandoned by the majority of players in the first age when any one group gets an overwhelming advantage and then a new world is opened.

Some rebalancing of honor costs, as well as rebalancing some of the parish guilds cost may be in order.

The flag costs for the parish cathedral as well as the gold costs on many of the defensive structures are still much too high, and as a result the cathedrals are rarely ever built and in many parishes players cant even defend effectively against AI attacks, let alone other players.

I just want to be able to enjoy this game again, hopefully the developers will view this post not as being critical of their efforts, but simply as suggestions to make SHK fun to play again.

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

Saturday morning and the server has only climbed to 4,299 players. And a Bunch of these are idle village idiot accounts.

10 players are at page, and 6 of them are in House 10.

Very low participation on this server.

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

53 hours after server launch and the weekend players are starting to log some hours. The server is up to 4,568 players. If Firefly wanted better participation they would launch a new server on Saturday instead of Thursday.

1 Earl
1 Viscount
1 Knight
3 Squires
10 Pages

There are now 12 factions

4 in House 10
2 in House 15
1 each in House 9, 11, 14, 16 and 17 and one yet to claim a house.

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

3 days into the server launch. A lot of activity on Saturday. 4,933 total players on the server.

1 Marquis
2 Viscount
1 Knight
8 Squire
4 Page

House 10 has 4 factions
House 13 has 2 factions
House 14 has 2 factions
House 15 has 2 factions
House 9, 11, 16, 17, and 18 have 1 faction
1 faction has yet to join a house.

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

Lots of activity over the weekend, but the amount of players on this server is still way down. 5,661 accounts on the server, of which 1,044 are village idiot accounts. My guess is players are just logging in an alt or a friend and spawning a village and not even taking the time to complete the tutorial.

House 10 has a full 5 factions
House 1, 14, 15 have 3 factions
House 3, 13, and 16 have 2 factions
House 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17, 18 and 9 have 1 faction
There are 5 unclaimed houses.

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

4.5 days after launch

6,025 total players listed, 1,130 are village idiots and 1,063 are bumpkins (which means they did not complete the tutorial). These are probably just new accounts used by existing players to seed an area with villages so they can be utilized later. I wish Firefly would look into accounts that only log in enough to spawn and don't actually play. 1,130 + 1,063 = 2,193 which is 36% of total players. If they are not real player that drops USA-5 to under 4,000 active players on a new server in the first week, which is sad.

5 factions - House 10
4 factions - House 14
3 factions - House 1, 15, 16
2 factions - House 3, 5, 12, 13, 18
1 faction - House 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 17
no factions yet for House 8, 19 and 20.
2 factions not aligned with a house yet.

[DekeYoungAtlanta]

It is day 7 and all the Houses now have at least 1 faction.

There are 2 factions without a house.

There are 107 players ranked Page or higher (enough to start a faction).

6,585 total on the server. 2,431 of them are Bumpkin/Village Idiots so they are just "planted" accounts. That is 37% of the server. Sad, really.