I am going to be completely transparent and honest in this section as I feel it is only fair and necessary to explain the current events within Gaiscioch. I've seen a lot of bitter comments flowing in our Discord about how we jump into a game and then everyone leaves and we move on to the next one. I've seen comments about how I personally play a game for a little bit and then jump to a new one. There are a few things I want to get out in the open.
- I play games to entertain. This is my endgame. I don't find joy in playing games by myself. I don't want to use the little time I have to lead events people don't show up for. I will use my time every time to fill it with an event people want to attend. My goal is to have 10+ people at every event I run. I have stayed true to this goal since the beginning of Gaiscioch nearly 18 years ago.
- I can't predict what will sink or swim. As much as I would like to say hey guys come play this you'll love it, it will be epic, it's going to be our next chapter, I simply can't predict what will happen when a game launches. I can see the warning signs that have caused hardship in the past, but in the end the developers of a game can change things at the last minute and shift the focus of the game. I have algorithms and spreadsheets that help me track the features you guys enjoy and make use of regularly and I map these based on the events and activities that are popular among our players. But even the most logical predictions still can't survive the test of whether players actually enjoy playing or if they will even give it a shot in the first place.
Now with those two things said I want to answer some questions that regularly pop up.
- Why do we spread ourselves so thin?
The bottom line is that we've been searching for chapter 6 for 4 years now. Typically when the population drops below 300 we start looking for that next home. Now the MMO market, as you may know, is not what it used to be. We have roughly 10-20 new MMOs coming out every year. Sifting through these MMOs is a bit of a task.
I've been able to eliminate several of them just based on playstyles of our members. For example, Darkfall released 2 different versions of the original. Seeing as less than 20% of our population currently partakes in PvP in the games we play this would be a bad choice for us. We have roughly 500 active members currently and only about 100 of them play consensual PvP. Even less play non-consensual PvP. This allows me to weed out games that don't meet at least our basic requirements.
Another big factor is Guild Size. With the modern trend of solo gaming in MMOs it has pushed social systems to the back burner. Guilds have shrunk dramatically because they want to make content fair for all players. This has made my job very difficult. For example, Conqueror's Blade once had a guild limit of 500, then 250, then at Open Beta launch it was 30 on day one and increased to 70 for level 1 guilds after a certain guild exploited the system. It's awful hard to support 300+ players in a game that only allows a max of 70 characters in a guild.
So for the past 4 years, we've continued to search high and low for whatever might be able to interest 300+ people and also support a community with 300+ people. Sure Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online can, however, we haven't been able to keep 300+ people interested in playing for quite some time. Our community really shines when we have a large crew supporting it. - Why do we need a chapter to include 300+ people?
I get this a LOT. The first thing to understand is that our average age in our community is 43 years of age. The average 40+ year old in the United States spends between 6 and 10 hours of gaming every week. This is directly from public industry statistics. On top of that our community welcomes and encourages casual gamers. So let me break down the math for you guys.
300 People x 10 Hours Per Week = 3,000 Game Hours Per Week
168 Total Hours in a Week (24 x 7)
3,000/168 = 11-18 Players Online Per Hour Average
Now if we take the current standard of games guild size:
100 x 10 = 1,000 Game Hours
1,000/168 = 4-6 Player Online Per Hour Average
By having the small guild sizes it forces us to kick casual gamers out and only allow the Hard Core gamer in. To maximize our population and ensure people can find and fill groups. This isn't the way Gaiscioch works! This is, in fact, the REASON Gaiscioch was founded in the first place. We are the home for those that would be cast out by hardcore guilds for not playing enough. We are the home for those who have full-time jobs and families. I refuse to turn us into just another guild that kicks out people for not playing enough. It's bad enough with the 500 person limits that we have to rotate rosters.
For us to remain welcoming to Casual Gamers we MUST focus on games that allow a minimum of 300 players. - If you only play games to entertain why do you spend so much time livestreaming to a handful of people?
This is an excellent question. I have battled with this one ever since I started on this quest. I can tell you that the ONE reason I continue to livestream games daily even if it's just for myself is that it keeps us in the "Media" column. We gain valuable opportunities for our community by livestreaming. When you register for several of the gaming media and events sites they require us to sync our YouTube and Twitch accounts with them. They total up the total amount of stream time and offer you opportunities based upon those numbers. If I was to stop streaming regularly we would lose access to interviews, behind the scenes NDA projects, and more importantly mass beta code giveaways for games we're looking at playing. The livestreams are simply our way of keeping our foot in the door to gain access to games that might not be announced publicly yet. We also launched the magazine to help with this endeavor however it doesn't have anywhere near the numbers we've built up from 8 years of livestreaming. - What's next for Gaiscioch?
I would love to tell you chapter 6 is going to be Ashes of Creation and we're going to amass a crazy big army and make the world the coolest place ever. However, as seen with games like Bless, pretty visuals, nice looking game systems on paper, a good story, don't always make it to the live game the way we thought they would. It's way too soon to tell and as of right now. We're still in the hunt for chapter 6. Right now we will continue focusing efforts on our two main chapters and try to keep as many free floaters on the boat as we can through adventures. Adventures have proved a very good way to keep our members around and active in the community. It is my hope that 2020 or 2021 will be the years we find that next home and can pull the family together once again.
In all honesty, I'm tired of hopping from game to game hoping for a sign of greatness. I'm ready to find a place to grow roots again. I just want to find a place where we all can be happy and unified and call a place home. One that has both PvE and PvP and doesn't force people to do either. One that doesn't force us to sacrifice our way of life to successfully exist. I hope it's right around the corner.
I thank you all for reading my wall of text and hope that it illuminates what's going on and why we do the things we do. The bottom line is the industry has changed, the demographic has changed, the player base expectations have changed, and the playstyle focus has changed. A lot of cards are playing against our way of life and I am searching for a lifeline. Something to keep us alive and well for the next 10 years. Guild Wars 2 and Elder Scrolls Online are two great games to ride out as long as we can. Hell, who knows, maybe they will improve on things and bring players back into the fold. In all honesty, sometimes I feel the best new MMO is the ones we've had all along. I begin to wonder if maybe I should look back rather than forward. It's all a matter of where I can find the best platform to sustain our community long term.