I just did some quick math about adds and drops.

Since the announcement of the world going invisible there have been 78 drops.

There are 104 players left in the game.

Granted, 34 of those drops might have had their fates sealed before the plot announcement, but the 104 remaining include those who successfully apped in April as well as those who dropped around the same time.

No more apps until the end of September.

Three more months worth of potential drops with no adds.

Well, two with no adds. One before the adds can show up.

This doesn't count all the people who have gone on hiatus.

If the drops continue at the present rate, and that's a big "IF," then the game will have only 1/10 th the characters in it that it did before the big plot arc with the disappearing world was announced.

I have made no secret of the fact that I am no fan of this plot arc, since it was first announced.

104 is still a huge game. And I highly doubt that with the energy and interest this plot has garnered that drops are going to continue like this.

The big "if." Yes.

Still, losing 40% of the characters in a time that did have a round of fresh apps is pretty rough.

I might be contributing to any issues that might exist. I just counted 24 game tags in my inbox, collecting dust.

At the very least I need to reevaluate my approach, which seems to be overextending myself.

I've been burnt out as well

though yeah game populations fluctuate naturally, it's not necessarily a problem in itself

There are a lot of possible contributing factors and yes, random fluctuation is huge.

Mostly I'm thinking about the relatively unusual choice of closing apps for much longer than usual and that this will necessarily mean no pool of replacements for the naturally occurring drop rate.

The only way to balance this is if we've managed to whittle it down to characters who are far less likely to drop anytime soon, for whatever reasons.

I haven't bothered counting actual player number trends, which might be much more valid in terms of interpreting the data.

It's likely because these plots aren't necessarily newbie friendly, especially with the AU2 stuff.

There is definitely very sound thinking behind the strategy.

It happens to have some side effects.

So closing apps was probably the best choice. That being said, the actual plot itself I'm not a fan of and I know there have been drops due to one or more of the mods modding a murdergame as well and not telling anyone until it opened the same month apps closed for the extended period.

Another contributing factor I was totally unaware of.

One that might have greater effects earlier in the long plot?

As those who would drop for those reasons would have done so by now?

I doubt it will or did have impact on the core player base. one mod is working with 4 other mods at the murdergame.

there are 2 others at Recolle. If people dropped over that there were probably other factors.