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DeletedUser
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I'm sure others will agree when I say, inactive players (specifically early quitters) bog down many aspects of the game. The general lack and uneven distribution of trading partners negatively impacts nearly every aspect of city/territory development.
I did some digging through the rankings, and here is a rough result of what I found:
What I propose is a 2-tiered or 3-tiered purge policy: the 30-day rule works fine for players who are actually investing some measurable time in the development of their cities, but the first stages of the game can be completed so swiftly that it becomes reasonable to apply a much less lenient standard for abandonment.
Players should be given a start-up grace period of only 1 to 3 days to do something - anything at all - before having their account wiped. I challenge anyone to submit reasons other than disinterest and abandonment which would result in a player maintaining a score of 0 for greater than 72 hours after the initial log-in. Daily email reminders could be made standard when an account is created, to provide ample opportunity to the player to avoid having their data deleted. The final notification of removal should include a link to create a new game account. (Remember, we're talking about taking the 27% of accounts at 0 and purging them at least 10 times faster than the normal rate, which should result in vastly reducing their negative impact on active neighbors.)
After displaying at least a measurable interaction with the game, a second tier timer could be used to hasten the purging of stalled accounts. These are the ones that never make it past a score of about 22. This could be perhaps 7 to 14 days to ensure these players are at least striding along the learning curve of the game before relaxing the requirement to the general 30-day rule. With 20% of players actually starting their cities, yet never reaching a score of 25, it is no wonder the number of complaints that are written about sluggish or non-existent markets for resource trade.
In summation:
I did some digging through the rankings, and here is a rough result of what I found:
[Last updated 7/20/2015]*
- Out of ~79k accounts, ~21.8k (27.5%) had a total score of... 0.
- ~6500 (8.2%)had attained a score of 1 - 18 (a significant early plateau).
- ~9900 (12.5%)had a score of 19 - 22 (the most concentrated grouping).
- ~21.3k (26.7%) have actually reached the point of building their first resource-producing structure (at a score of ~150 or greater).
- ~12.3k (15.5%) have reached a score of at least 500, roughly the point where players tend to build the Trader.
What I propose is a 2-tiered or 3-tiered purge policy: the 30-day rule works fine for players who are actually investing some measurable time in the development of their cities, but the first stages of the game can be completed so swiftly that it becomes reasonable to apply a much less lenient standard for abandonment.
Players should be given a start-up grace period of only 1 to 3 days to do something - anything at all - before having their account wiped. I challenge anyone to submit reasons other than disinterest and abandonment which would result in a player maintaining a score of 0 for greater than 72 hours after the initial log-in. Daily email reminders could be made standard when an account is created, to provide ample opportunity to the player to avoid having their data deleted. The final notification of removal should include a link to create a new game account. (Remember, we're talking about taking the 27% of accounts at 0 and purging them at least 10 times faster than the normal rate, which should result in vastly reducing their negative impact on active neighbors.)
After displaying at least a measurable interaction with the game, a second tier timer could be used to hasten the purging of stalled accounts. These are the ones that never make it past a score of about 22. This could be perhaps 7 to 14 days to ensure these players are at least striding along the learning curve of the game before relaxing the requirement to the general 30-day rule. With 20% of players actually starting their cities, yet never reaching a score of 25, it is no wonder the number of complaints that are written about sluggish or non-existent markets for resource trade.
In summation:
- >1/4 of all player accounts have not actually been played at all, with a score of 0. Nearly all can be presumed abandoned. These should have a short timer of inactivity (1 to 3 days) prior to being marked for removal.
- >1/5 of all player accounts have been played, but only nominally, with scores <25. Most can reasonably be assumed abandoned. These should have a medium timer of inactivity (7 to 14 days) prior to being marked for removal.
- The remaining 51% of accounts have a score of 25 or more and should remain on the 30-day long timer for inactivity.
*It is worth noting that these proportions have gotten slowly worse since this thread was started.
Thank you for your consideration, now let's discuss!
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