I think the forums are a much better measure of the health of the game. Look at the ratio of Off Topic threads compared to threads which are actually discussing an aspect of the game. The forums used to be a place where guides were always in the AT, clans posted their page to attract new members and OSW threads were spawned, locked, cleaned up, re-opened, locked again. Now it is mostly nonsensical attention seeking.
^But guides aren't really conversational pieces, I mean how many times can you tell op "good job" lol. But I do see what you mean.
Which guides still need to be done ? Almost every guide of any value has already been done and updated. We don't need the same threads repeated. Though maybe people could try some new topics for threads. As for clan threads. How often do people stay at clans or look for new ones now. They either hunt hte week by week. Or they are established in a clan longterm and have no need of an advert. Topics available will always reduce in a 5 plus year old game.
I'm not saying that we necessarily need new guides, the golden oldies are excellent. Who doesn't love Toast's guide to quests? I'm saying that the days of bumping the KaW Handbook to make it easily accessible for the new guy are gone. Is clan loyalty such a rare thing that nobody joining KaW today will have a home clan rather than jumping from HTE to HTE? Are these not signs of how few newcomers there are? If there were as many people joining the game today as there were three years ago wouldn't people be trying to attract them with a smart looking clan thread or helping them get started by having them read up on the basics of fight mechanics?
I'm in a clan for smalls that started up a few weeks back & we may be the exception but seems like there are alot of new players around to me atm. We haven't run a hte & had atleast 20-25+ accts in n out during the last day or 2 with less than that many ads & we got a few to stay around ...we get alot of new/returning players still as well as event/small eq hunters & bigger players who like to help new players/clans grow...we point as many of them to the forums as possible ofc. I think wit the gaps between stats these days its just that less old players will meet new players unless they're willing to revisit the low tiers again regularly. Also i find less than 1/5 old players use cc often where its every 2nd new player uses cc to ask for help or say hi...perhaps it's not an issue of kaw getting alot less new players and more so alot of old players not being around for the newer chattier ones?
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