Janet's Shenanigans

CivReign is long dead by now, but we can take a look back at the data I gathered through The Reign Form and see what that says about how the server died.

Demographics

76 respondents filled out the form, which made up a substantial portion of the server’s active population. Estimates range from 30% to 40% at the time of the form.

The most common nations from respondents were: – Duchy of Courron (9) – Laurentia (8) – Norlund (5) – Gensokyo (4) – Fomhar, Mount Ida Vangar (3)

76% of respondents indicated they came to the server to build.

Analysis: Given the server’s CivRealms-like grinding required to achieve even iron-level tools, as well as basic building materials like glass being locked behind factories and wood being locked behind multi-IRL-day growth times, it’s likely that the builder demographic being alienated from CivReign was one of the main reasons for the server’s rapid decline.

46% of respondents indicated they came to the server to grind.

Analysis: Frankly, I’m not sure how to make sense of this. With the immense grindiness of the server, this demographic should have stuck around. Perhaps the grind was too hard to get to? Plants tons of days to grow and were fickle about location. Effective ore mining rates were locked behind hard-to-locate portals that players kept to themselves. Animals, one of the server’s most touted features, weren’t widely available until a few weeks post-launch. Also, I would be remiss not to mention the botting rules disallowing grinding via bots as a possible factor.

60% of respondents indicated they came to the server to roleplay.

Analysis: I don’t know what to say here that I’m not going to say about people who came for the community.

40% of respondents indicated they came to the server to explore.

Analysis: Given the difficulty of growing food and the massive cost of boats, it’s likely explorers were alienated by the inability to explore.

64% of respondents indicated they came to the server for the community.

Analysis: This is one of those demographics that mostly relies on others being there, so alienation of other groups alienates this group. This demographic also doesn’t take kindly to start-of-the-world murder.

10% of respondents indicated they came to the server to dominate.

Analysis: Like socialisers, dominators want other players to dominate over, and alienating those will also alienate dominators. It’s also likely the scarcity of materials made it harder for dominators to feel in-control.

Past Servers

70% of respondents had played CivMC previously.

Analysis: A lot of the former CivMC players had indicated feeling alienated from CivMC; CivReign was effectively their glimmer of hope to them. The sheer difference from CivMC and difficulty of getting established may have alienated this demographic.

53% of respondents had played CivRealms previously.

Analysis: Given the similarity of CivReign to CivRealms, it’s not surprising it drew in the same crowd.

23% of respondents had played the CivReign beta previously.

Analysis: Given how dramatically different the full launch was from the CivReign beta, these players were almost certainly alienated from the get-go. Many indicates as such on write-ins on the survey as well.

Feelings

76% of respondents indicated they felt neutrally to positively about the server, with most (36%) indicating they only felt slightly positively about the server.

89% of respondents indicated they felt the server would change for the better over time, with most (35%) indicating they felt very strongly positive about the direction it was heading.

73% of respondents indicated they felt CivReign was better than the servers they had played previously, with most (30%) indicating they only felt slightly better about CivReign than past servers.

Write-Ins

Common sentiments throughout write-in positives in rough order of frequency were: – Admins that communicated better compared to past Civ servers (See also: Most players came from CivMC.) – Admins were more willing to make changes compared to past Civ servers – The world generation was beautiful – The tech tree looked interesting – The server was unique compared to other servers

Common sentiments throughout write-in negatives in rough order of frequency were: – The server felt half-baked and buggy on launch – The grinding was boring, and obtaining resources was too difficult for the benefit – Requirement to get tin and copper to progress to iron-level tools whilst requiring iron-level gear to travel long distances and limiting effective mining to another dimension with rare portals – Admins failed to address issues past the surface level – Plants, especially trees, took too long to grow – Biomes were strange

Conclusion

I think it’s safe to say that whilst the launch was promising, we can point to the immense yet boring grinding as the main killer of the server.

Builders and socialiers/roleplayers, the largest demographic, were alienated by the inability to obtain iron-level tools and basic building materials without needing to grind.

Grinders felt the grinding was boring and inaccessible to get to “the good parts” of grinding.

From this the other demographics fell out from a lack of people to interact with.

Data

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VMrs0n8A6ae7QE_lTIa_16b9DBeg8rBmc_uUMO1Cl48/edit?usp=sharing