A short survey - How did you find Discovery?

[Teerin]

I found Freelancer whilst wading through Amazon.com.
The Discovery Mod was mentioned in the comments section, and a friend also recommended it to me.

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"You see what your knowledge tells you you're seeing. ... how, what you think the universe is, and how you react to that in everything you do, depends on what you know. And when that knowledge changes, for you, the universe changes. And that is as true for the whole of society as that is for the individual. We all are what we know, today. What we knew yesterday, was different; and so were we."
- James Burke, The Day the Universe Changed (1985)

[Draconyx]

I got introduced to the vanilla trial version years ago. Was hooked after that.

[Ash]

I've been looking over the data and the comments posted and have made a few assumptions based on what was obtained. There has been some minor fault with the survey in general due to certain individuals being confused about the options, thus ticking 'other' when it is not required. This has to be taken into account despite the numbers as they stand.

Only a small portion of the community claims to have discovered discovery accidentally which happens to be good as well as bad. It shows that the rate of incoming users is fairly stable in that sense and is not likely to be overwhelmed due to chance. But then of course the less votes on any option in general means less people are finding us here. Nevertheless, the numbers obtained from the first two options carry little weight otherwise due to the chance factor it puts forward.

Many people claim to have found us through word of mouth which explains a lot about what I like to call the Discovery effect. Put simply the mod is so god damn amazing it's rather difficult to not talk about. It explains a lot about how we've managed to maintain a constantly high population of users in the past, but does not explain why this population has fallen recently.

Interestingly the option that received the most votes happened to be those that had gone looking for discovery through a search engine or otherwise. By reading some of the comments I've noticed many of these people are familiar with Microsoft Freelancer, and this leads them to pursue leads on it. This could be an explanation and a reinforcement of arguments that Freelancer is indeed becoming evermore ancient; that less people remember it, and increasingly less people have heard of it. Despite the fact that many people enter into discovery through this gateway, relying on such a high density of incoming users through this gateway would consequently lead to a slow decline in net users over time. However this theory does not explain the steep decline in users by nearly 50% in the past 6 months.

MODDB seems to attract a substantial portion of players, and by reading some of the accompanying comments, such people are interested in the gaming type as opposed to the game. Consequently, the players that pass through this portal would be more likely to stay since the gaming type is of a sort they are familiar with. Another factor I feel contributes to the discovery effect. The advertising value we obtain from MODDB is invaluable, however it is a search engine, we cannot expect to be found if we are not sought after.

Understandably no people mentioned they found discovery through advertising, it makes sense since DiscoveryGC or the discovery server have no advertising agreements. An option that would be considerable in time, but as to the effectiveness of such a campaign, one can only speculate.

The Freelancer Community Network is still bleeding a small portion of players through to us. Discovery is the last standing Freelancer server as far as I'm concerned so it makes sense that players should migrate from servers that are dead or dying through that portal. This is by no means a reliable income of users, it will surely decline to nought over time and only adds as a bonus to our numbers. However players entering into Discovery by this portal are ever more likely to stay than those from MODDB since they are familiar with the game and it's mods in general. This adds again to the discovery effect I have been mentioning.

A considerable amount of players chose other, and despite the anomaly noted initially, the number of accompanying comments fall short of the total votes made leaving much to speculation. However it seems a number of players found discovery through the multiplayer portal when Freelancer was still supported by Microsoft. This entry pathway is outdated and almost void at present since no other users will be finding us this way.

I have compiled a small scale on which I have put demonstrative values of incoming players to rate each portal through which people find discovery. In addition I have compared them from now to six and twelve months ago assumptively.

12 Months Ago

Accidental: +/-1
Word of Mouth: +2
Internet Search: +3
MODDB: +2
Freelancer Community Network: +2
Other: +1

6 Months Ago

Accidental: +/-1
Word of Mouth: +2
Internet Search: +2
MODDB: +1
Freelancer Community Network: +3
Other: +/-0

Present Day

Accidental: +/-1
Word of Mouth: +2
Internet Search: +1
MODDB: +1
Freelancer Community Network: +1
Other: +/-0

So across that time, purely assumptively speaking, the net increase in players is approximately -4. Added to whatever the outgoing user stats may be this figure does not bode well for the overall net transfer of players into the community.

I believe there are a few ways in which we can influence this increase but I fear without proper intervention the problem will not fix itself. A sudden influx of players I feel would be purely down to chance and should not be interpreted as a reversal of the process we have been seeing over the past months.

As individuals we can enhance the influx of players through word of mouth. Many people that have been recommended here appear to like the game and the server in general judging by some of the comments made. Members I believe now make up a large portion of the community, but who's presence duration is not yet proven. Time will tell if such a solution will prove effective in the long term or not.

Alternatively, any of the other portals can be enhanced if more attention were to be paid to them. Applications to MODDB for features on the discovery mod, requesting priority in internet search engines and advertisement campaigns are all worthy options to consider; most of which require financial support to proceed. Free 'publicity' campaigns in forums across the internet can also be launched to attract more suitable players to the mod.

One thing I think the managerial team here at Discovery are doing that is not attracting as much attention as hoped is to continually develop the mod. It is a fantastic mod for an already fantastic game, but if nobody in the wider world knows about it, then how can we expect to see more people attracted by it.

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[Zahas]

i was playing homeworld 2 complex like 2-3 years ago and i've remembered that i have internet connection and i can play freelancer online.

Back in those days when i was realy young and FL just came out i used to connect to internet using dial up i had tons of lag and i knew i can't play it.
My original game freelancer was bought from Canada when it came out.

And how i've actualy found Discovery, easy, i've searched a server with many people on it

[lIceColon]

summer (i think)2011, Cheated my way through sp in a dromedary + godmode.

Was looking for a singleplayer expansion with more ships and systems, so found crossfire freeworlds and disco both on moddb.

since i was looking for singleplayer, naturally opensp on both freeworlds and disco did not interest me. Freeworlds primarily because I didn't know my way around. Fiddled around with flexplorer and disco for a little while then got bored.

(trying not to make this a crossfire love story, but) I spent months trying to download crossfire due to my crappy internet connection, and finally when i got my new laptop sept 2012, I was able to finally download crossfire. by then I also got better internet, and could finally play multiplayer games.

tried the cf multiplayer for a while, got a bit annoyed by the constant updating and saw people talking about disco on cf which sparked my interest again

Jan 2013 (i think) started playing disco, and now you know my unnecessary long story. hope this helped your short survey

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No atmosphere? GTFO.
The propeller is the greatest invention of all time.

[aakopa]

YouTube and Google search.

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[Starsunder]

Voted 'other'. My friend saw me playing Galaxy on Fire 2 on my phone and remarked that it reminded him of Freelancer.

I searched the game out, obtained a copy, enjoyed the campaign, then searched online for FL servers, and found Discovery.

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[Murk]

Thru search link for best mod.

[Blackvertigo1]

*Lurk* *Lurk*

I was on a testing server and this specific mod was spoke of.

It's or it was a modding server where you could play around with the dynamics of the open source FL.

Other than that, I'm now silently slipping into the deep matrix of information...


**End of message**

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"The path to hell is paved with good intentions."

* Nodoka Hanamura is all about that SSH life

If you can't RP then 1.0

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy - from our odyssey into Hell, we have returned with a gift."

[AeternusDoleo]

A good friend of mine invited me to come to this server. Disco was my second mod - the first being a really weird one, of which I only remember that they had "rubber duckies" as cargo. Don't remember which one it was, only played for a few hours...

Alternatively, any of the other portals can be enhanced if more attention were to be paid to them. Applications to MODDB for features on the discovery mod, requesting priority in internet search engines and advertisement campaigns are all worthy options to consider; most of which require financial support to proceed. Free 'publicity' campaigns in forums across the internet can also be launched to attract more suitable players to the mod.

Are you volunteering to help out in this?

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Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.