[imported_MadMan]

Thing is, we agree with you. If things stay the way they are right now player count isn't getting any higher. What I personally don't agree with is the reason.

We had high online count at one point and there was a lot of players hunting, crafting, ganking and doing events. We had always 10-30 in 1v1 regs and all was good. Just check the PvP ladder for past tournaments and see it for yourself. Ladder wasn't even there when we had our highest player count. That means most of those players had a PvP ready character to participate with. Not all of those players had a transfer either and that was without a skillstone and skillgain back then was a lot harder too. In the end, what brings more players and what makes them want to stay is having a stable playerbase in the first place.

We have a plan. At the moment we can't say how it's going to unfold though since there are factors that we have no influence on. What we believe is that we need to get those mails out to our old playerbase as soon as possible since that's what we need to give this shard a jump start. No player who wants interaction will want to join a shard with low client count unless they have friends playing there or they know for sure that the player count will get higher in the future.

Issue with sending those mails at the moment is server hardware. Even if we would get a high playerbase it means nothing if we can't keep those players. Lag is one of the big reasons many players left in the first place. If we send those mails out and can't support all the players most of them will end up leaving again and probably won't even consider coming back when we send another mail saying we have a new server now and lag issues are fixed.

There has been numerous discussions about this issue so go ahead and search the forums for those topics. Conclusion in the end was that we need some better hardware. Issue with getting new server is money and a possibility that our current server is getting a hardware upgrade in the near future. Our current server is provided by xs4all and has no monthly cost. At least now we have relatively stable server and no running costs that we have to meet every month by getting donations. If you have any new ideas that haven't been brought up already we welcome them. However, before doing so please take the time to skim through the old topics to see if the suggestion has been made before and discussed already.

I didnt play at the start of this shard but I can assume the majority did not complain about skill gain because the majority transfered their accounts. You may deny this but it is true.. (So you have all the xuo players who transfered and IN players with skills and that made a big shard. The new players saw the high playerbase and stayed but soon left cause of skill gain but wasnt really noticable. - my theory (: )

Hmm, lets say the pvp and skill gain were the main reasons we lost players. Skill gain is now WAY easier and yet we have a low player base. That says to me that something else needs to be changed/fixed.

Skill gain is not going to fix anything at all, it hasn't the last two times we changed it and it won't if we change it again.

" Barely changed it "