Author Topic: Investigation into the Rises/Falls of FH's online activity (community effort!)  (Read 5550 times)

PocketMutt

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Intro:
For most of us long-time users from 2012/2013, we generally feel like Feral Heart is on some sort of downhill spiral and that there's a lot less activity than when we started out. As LordSuragaha pointed out, this isn't really the case. Sure, it feels like FH is dying, what with old MODS/Admins retiring and altogether a lot less rambunctious in-game behavior, but at least in terms of numbers, FH isn't losing activity. The number of people online in the busiest times of the day has roughly stayed the same.

 Initially, however, I did think FH was dying and I wanted to see if the increase(s) in the popularity of mass markings made younger/newer users feel out of loop and less involved with other players. Thus, making a huge proportion of users less likely to keep playing and making the # of downloads rely heavily on old/current users re-downloading rather than surges of new ones downloading the game for the first time. However, I immediately ran into a couple of problems when I tried looking into this: 1) I don't know how to (or if I even can) get access to the number of downloads Feral Heart has gotten as well as the age ranges of those downloads 2)even if I somehow got that data I wouldn't know if it can be applied to a timeline 3) it's incredibly messy trying to track the popularity of mass markings since there are multiple versions and its been around quite a while.

 So, instead I just went digging into FeralHeart's online activity since there are a lot of sites that will do this for you by just typing in the domain you wish to look into. When I searched up FeralHeart, sure enough, I found that we aren't in some sort of depression and that FH is, in fact, doing just fine.

 Besides that though I did notice that there were a lot of spikes/drops in online activity and I thought it'd be interesting to try and see if I could find the possible contributions to those rises and falls. I quickly realized that I'm missing a lot of background information and that it'd be best if the community could help and fill in the possible missing pieces. So, I'm firstly posting what I was able to composite on my own and as more information is given I'll update it accordingly.  Maybe instead of letting a negative outlook manifest without data to support our sense of despair, we can find a positive attitude in all of this by contributing, as a community, to a timeline that we helped shape in the first place. :)

*Disclaimer:*
 Obviously, it's very hard to say that any one thing might've contributed since this is an overall accounting of the online activity not the number of downloads, and even then it's hard to say. The data for this also doesn't show the distinction of people going online just for the download or people going online to check out the forums. Also the forums, in a lot of ways, are a different entity than the game itself (case in point: I've been playing FH since 2012-ish but only just started to use the forums..at least properly anyways).

ABOUT:
I will be showing pictures of data with certain pinpointed dates to help create the sense of a timeline. Underneath each picture, I will be putting the dates of events that might've contributed to the rises/falls of activities shown within that portion of the timeline.

*Please ignore the bottom red line in the pictures as this has to do with paid data/advertisements and doesn't apply to FH*

The flag(s) shown in the picture(s) refers to any relative high-point(s) of activity.

 To reveal the picture(s) click the "Show" button underneath the golden pawprint(s)




T h e  F i r s t  Y e a r :

 January 2011 - August 2011        






We see an initial rise in activity after the servers are open from 1 in Jan to 81 in Feb

Events/Possible Contributions:


Jan 2011: Feral Heart comes out
Feb 2011: Servers launch
June 2011: KovuLKD joins Facebook/1st post on June 21



September 2011 - December 2011




In the latter part of 2011, we see a rise in activity from 603 in Sept to 2,288 in Oct

Events/Possible Contributions:


Apr 3: Feral-Heart-Art is created on DeviantArt


T h e  R e s t  o f  t h e  Y e a r s :

January 2012 - June 2014




Here there is little to none noticeable rises or falls for almost three years. However, it does start off with a rise at 4,777 on Apr 2012.
I think this period of constant high activity is what most would consider the "golden years."

Events/Possible Contributions:

June 2012: KovuLKD leaves
Oct 2012: Feral Heart's officical tumblr is created
Jan 6: Floofy-Corner on DeviantArt is created




July 2014 - April 2015





In the first picture, there is a significant spike from 4,109 in Jul 2014 to 14,159 in Aug 2014
The second picture shows another spike from 10,770 in Oct 2014 to 19,583 in Nov 2014

Events/Possible Contributions:
? ? ? ?

May 2015 - Dec 2015





The first picture shows a rise from 10,244 in May to 16,765 in Jun
While the second picture shows an initial drop in Sept at 10,424 to another rise to 18,541 in Dec

Events/Possible Contributions:
? ? ? ?

Jan 2016 - Aug 2017






The first picture shows arise at 22,773 and another rise in Apr
The second picture goes from 22,823 in Jun to a fall at 22,637 in Jul
The last picture shows a rise at 22,637 in Aug, which is the last date I'm taking into consideration in this post.

Events/Possible Contributions:
June 2016: 1.15 Patch/Update




The whole point of this is to contribute as an online community and fill in the pieces to a timeline. So, feel free to either leave a comment about a significant event that might've effected FH's activity or comment a date of something that took place. Here are a few examples of things you can help fill in:

Dates when the server was shut down
When account registration started randomizing
When General chat was removed
Dates of updates (i.e. the addition of wings update)

« Last Edit: November 01, 2018, 11:27:09 am by PocketMutt »

Offline FlyingGrass

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I'm impressed, I've never seen a post this long before.

1) I don't know how to (or if I even can) get access to the number of downloads Feral Heart has gotten as well as the age ranges of those downloads
I don't think it's possible to get the age range of the downloads, unless the site asks for the age of everyone who downloads it.

My presets.

Good things take time, so I'll take an eternity and create something so good that the human brain can't handle the sheer goodness of it.

PocketMutt

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I'm impressed, I've never seen a post this long before.

1) I don't know how to (or if I even can) get access to the number of downloads Feral Heart has gotten as well as the age ranges of those downloads
I don't think it's possible to get the age range of the downloads, unless the site asks for the age of everyone who downloads it.

Thank you  ;) I knew it was going to be a long post but I will say that I didn't intend for it to be so text heavy. Ah well.

Also yeah I figured it might not be possible to get the download data with age ranges so that's why I made this post using the data from online activity instead.

Offline Michen_S

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What I'm missing in the timeline is the 1.15 patch, also known as the infamous "2016 update" that happened in June. You know the year, I'm sure. It doesn't appear to have a major impact on short term though, which surprises me a little.
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PocketMutt

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What I'm missing in the timeline is the 1.15 patch, also known as the infamous "2016 update" that happened in June. You know the year, I'm sure. It doesn't appear to have a major impact on short term though, which surprises me a little.

Sorry for the super late response ! Apparently, I left 2016 out of the timeline and I don't really remember why (assuming I was running out of space) but I went ahead and added the info you have given in the Jan 2016 - Aug 2017 section. Thank you so much !

PocketMutt

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Updated the header graphic and added info

Offline WolfQueen

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i believe kovulkd left the scene around June 2012. i remember watching a livestream of someone drawing and talking to him via skype as he released a mini patch that month. that was the last time i've seen him active.

there also have been quite a lot of patches during the 2011 time period i got from the original FH files. this doesn't note any marking updates but they do exist.
-Dec 29 bug fixes, added wing UVs to preset 11 and 12
-Dec 24 wings added
-Dec 10 bug fixes, updated .mesh files
-Dec 7 "Major bug fix!"
-July 13 added roar and howl
-June 26 party chat added, new logo
-May 18 bug fixes and lip-sync added
-April 14 preset and map maker changed. map maker can now export objects, weather, and sky and custom maps are now shareable
« Last Edit: September 18, 2018, 03:35:51 am by WolfQueen »


PocketMutt

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i believe kovulkd left the scene around June 2012. i remember watching a livestream of someone drawing and talking to him via skype as he released a mini patch that month. that was the last time i've seen him active.

there also have been quite a lot of patches during the 2011 time period i got from the original FH files. this doesn't note any marking updates but they do exist.
-Dec 29 bug fixes, added wing UVs to preset 11 and 12
-Dec 24 wings added
-Dec 10 bug fixes, updated .mesh files
-Dec 7 "Major bug fix!"
-July 13 added roar and howl
-June 26 party chat added, new logo
-May 18 bug fixes and lip-sync added
-April 14 preset and map maker changed. map maker can now export objects, weather, and sky and custom maps are now shareable


This is a lot of info, thank you so much ! Is what you listed all from 2011?

Offline WolfQueen

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This is a lot of info, thank you so much ! Is what you listed all from 2011?
think so. they don't mention a year in the notepad file but i remember wings being added that year.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2018, 05:21:52 am by WolfQueen »


Offline Nephrite

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This is actually a very interesting topic! I actually wouldn't have guessed that the FH online activity had grown as much as it had from 2014 and onwards. The fact that since 2016 ish we've had to log in on the website in order to play in game might have also had some impact with the increase in numbers.

I think one of the most major factors (in game anyways) is that a lot of the FH population has matured, firstly. A lot of us have been playing since before 2014 at least, so a lot of FHs community has grown up, either grown out of playing FH as much as they used to, or simply don't have time to be as active and social in game.

Secondly, a lot of groups have turned to talking and roleplaying in private rather than in public. So many roleplay groups are mapped nowadays; there's hardly anyone in the official maps created, except for TG and perhaps CV, which really does make the game seem a bit desolate at times, even if you're sitting right next the the Lonely Cave portal in TG.

Though it's really assuring to see the data presented this way! I don't really think FH is truly dying—it may be at a standstill but we do have so many members who really do enjoy the game and wouldn't let it die out. I think it's more or less of a demographic shift that has caused the game to feel a bit more desolate.