[Indigo]

Hey everyone I really enjoy this community but it lacks a good player base it indeed needs improving someway or another, Maybe we could make community trailers, invite more friend's or if you think of any better idea then let's hear it, I would really like it if the player base improved.

So what do you think?

[Mr.Sir]

LL has a steady player base now days, Sure it goes up and down but mostly after 17:00 there is more players active.

Sometimes there is huge dips but that is mostly seasonal, people working, final tests in school and so on.

[Guv]

it has it's up and down days. peak is usally round about 17-18:00 GMT

Player count literally varies through the week

[Montyfatcat]

We hit 50 a while back, what concerned me was that when the server crashed, we lost about 30 of those people, and the rest sort of milled about aimlessly

[Nudel]

[Cheet]

[img]blob:https://imgur.com/49a3ad8d-716e-4c85-8b9a-e7ea8bdb1b8f[/img]

This was just before 9PM (GMT) today.. The sever was also quiet last night from 7PM (GMT) onwards..

[Ben]

[img]blob:https://imgur.com/49a3ad8d-716e-4c85-8b9a-e7ea8bdb1b8f[/img]

This was just before 9PM (GMT) today.. The sever was also quiet last night from 7PM (GMT) onwards..

Your one image doesn't appear to be working.

[Cheet]

[img]blob:https://imgur.com/49a3ad8d-716e-4c85-8b9a-e7ea8bdb1b8f[/img]

This was just before 9PM (GMT) today.. The sever was also quiet last night from 7PM (GMT) onwards..

Your one image doesn't appear to be working.

Eh, Cba to fix it lmao

[Nudel]

Considering how low the player-count is for over 2 months now I do not really understand how no one is speaking about this topic huh.

[Montyfatcat]

It's a self feeding issue. Because there's nobody on, people get bored and don't stay on, causing there to be nobody on. 

Then we have the fact that once the server crashes, for many they just play something else. Most of our "content" is just crime, very repetitive crime. And all of it relies on players to make it fun. Even GTA has more fun ways of making money with the sell missions, businesses etc. But the team are adamant that players can fill that void and create a fun experience for everyone when the systems themselves are so dull.

[Tom*]

It's a self feeding issue. Because there's nobody on, people get bored and don't stay on, causing there to be nobody on. 

Then we have the fact that once the server crashes, for many they just play something else. Most of our "content" is just crime, very repetitive crime. And all of it relies on players to make it fun. Even GTA has more fun ways of making money with the sell missions, businesses etc. But the team are adamant that players can fill that void and create a fun experience for everyone when the systems themselves are so dull.

I agree but it's slightly unfair to compare limelight, very small business to Rockstar games a billion-dollar company

[Night]

The crashes are something that the devs are still investigating last I checked. It's a map-related issue which the author is aware of, and I believe we have devs looking into ways we can detect when the server has crashed and restart it when it does. I imagine this is the main cause for lack of players, because when the server crashes a lot of people simply get frustrated and end up moving on.

In regards to content, there is stuff in the works but as you can probably understand, I have to be vague as to not ruin the entire update. It's looking quite promising though!

[MrMarsh]

As of the time i write this post we have 3 people on on a saturday... The playercount is concerning though i have to admit that over the last few months the serverpopulation has been increasingly random: sometimes causing 30player peaks after 10 or 11pm and sometimes having droughts through 6-9 pm which used to be a prime time. It can be hard to predict.


My personal thoughts (& dissapointment in our mapswitch)
One thing that is not hard to predict however is a lack of events and larger (dupe based-) rps. The total lack of adequate building space combined with the circumstance that as with every map change people will have to rebuild their stuff is definatly a very significant burden on that. What i loved about evo or any other map (im not too much of a evo fan) is that that there was allways one or two things going on. Random shops, fun fairs, mob stuff or accidents etc. Southside is not really optimised for our style of city rp. It would be good for a community like monolith... but we are not running a cops&robbers mode nor would it be wise to compete with that.
We experienced some slight decline and once again misstook a simple map change for new content / a new insentive. And people were so eager to jump onto it that they overlooked or choosed to ignore (cuz lets face it most businesse do not belong on "rooftops or the water") the maps compatibility with our gamemode and overall style.
Im not saying the map sucks - im saying it is really not that well optimised for a gamemode as sanbox-like as ours.

Pick the right competitor
Another thing is the "we are dying" mentality. Lets face it Gmod is a niche game. Thats not really a bad thing though - it leaves us with only one relevant competitor. Its important though that we choose what we want to compete with (southside beeing a close immitation of Monolith and most american servers - evo bringing us closer to FL). If we crap on the building/sandbox part and choose to immitate a community 3 times as large we are putting ourselves in an undesirable and uneeded position.
LL has enourmous potentiall, and LL has shown for years now that we can make an impact despite or probably because of our sorta niche role.

Over all one option to deal with the current decline in the playercount could be reverting back to evo. The map announcement mentioned that the switch will be a proactive decision, depending on the playercount. I think it is safe to say that we have reached a point where we could reconsider that decision based on said playercount.
Though it comes with its downsights & risk a reversion would bring back plenty of dupes, and structures that could be used for events and an overall revive/boost to the passive rp scene.

A selfullfilling prophecy / ups & downs that come with playing a niche game / the "dont be a dick" part
This whole "LL/Gmod" is dying slang is not too suprising yet its rather pointless. Sure especially those that have stuck with us for a short time - or recently returned from a longer leave will find that the playercount fluctuates more severely than it has a few years ago. That doesnt mean that this community or gmod is dying though. Both LL and Gmod (even FL tbh) have been diagnosed dying for more then 2 years now. And yet here we are ... People seem to take temporary trends for permanent predicitions. And in doing so they add to the problem they complain about.
The player count and the health of the community is a bit like a selffulfilling prophecy. The more people spread Fear about a temporary trend the more others will reconsider wether it may be wise to invest time and effort into a game that, as they would think may not reward that investment. The better things are going... the more people will seriously invest in the game/community.
Especially on a roleplay server though we are dependend on a minimum playerbase: it is not fun to police a town with 3 residents, or to run a shop with no customers.
The less people are online, concerned about their online experience suffering from a low playercount the less people will actually join in the first place. This mechanism works the other way too. And i think this may be the cause for the increasing irigularity we have seen recently (with the usual peaktimes beeing quite low and actual peaks quite unpredictable).
People are hesitant to invest time playing a game if it may not be that rewarding. Though at our heart most of us still love and enjoy the game itself. So if a increasingly rare peak shows up we rush to make it onto the server staying for as long as the rest of us are....

We are depending on each other to grant us a worthwile experience. Thus one of the first things we can do is show a little faith: If we can trust each other to be on the server. We dont need to reconsider our investment. If we can shift from "I predicted it First - Breaking news: a 16 year old game is not a triple A title anymore !" to constructive feedback like we will hopefully see it in this post we have a more then fair shot of picking up some steam again.


Advertisement and public awareness
Another thing is advertisement. As i said we are are playing a niche game. Meaning that few people know about our existence. The giant advantage that brings us though is that there is little competition or other distraction. As long as we can proof that we are the most sandboxy thing you could dream off (this is a little subjective but lets face it we got a bunch of shit 5M etc. does lack), people will be inclined to come around. A large number of people including me were rather oblivious to the whole concept of GMOD-cityrp till they saw it in a video. In my case it was some weird german dude building relatively hidious contraforts on FL (before LL was a thing). And i just thought to myself: this is it....

We have something to offer people. 5M has a bigger map and better cars, Arma servers have larger maps and slightly more realism etc - but not a single Game nor community gives you the ammount of creative freedom we have to offer.
In none of those relatively large titles and communities i am able to decide "hey i wanna be a chef" and build my own fucking Diner" just realise "meh im allout of fish" so i close the thing, build my own boat and decide to be a fisher for a while whilst other people build their own chop shop, create or enjoy fun fairs or decide to become an astronaut. Why is gmod after way more then a decade still a thing: because there aint a better or broader sandbox ! Are there better/more optimised platforms: sure - can they pull of what people do in Gmod? Not for another decade at least.

If we get that point across to a relatively unaware and thus unconsumed public we have a bright future.


I myself will try to record a little (now that i got some relatively "decent" software). Though given my realtively low experience in editing and likely interuptions (urgent staff calls) ill probably not hit the diamond play button right away.
Generally speaking though - and this will be the last point of my long and at times unescessery colloquial rambling: we should insentivise people to create content. Im not nescessarily talking about a streamer role or monetary rewards, smaller events or generall cooperation/assistance with other members preping to create content may be sufficient.


To conclude: i know some of this is subjective - and most of this isnt groundbreaking news. But i have the feeling that we tent to forget about our role at times (occasioanly leading us to have false expecations and unused potential).

[Montyfatcat]

Honestly, the most popular live streams I did were running shops on LL whilst people around me were going nuts. The issue is that to stream, it's kinda a requirement yo have 30+ people to actually make good content

[Cole]

It's pretty sad to see the community that once was the dominant one out of the two - Limelight and Fearless - slowly crossing over to it's counterpart at the start of this saga. I think we can pretty much draw a graph with a massive X on it, Fearless had very low player counts but now exceed Limelight consistently and easily. Limelight once had this but now consistently has low player counts. If I was Limelight, I'd start to pick my ass up a little bit. However, comparing with Fearless isn't going to help bring back players so let's get onto the point.

I was speaking with ForceGhost the other day about Limelight and it's content, whilst it's not something that will massively improve player count on its own it does add up to the many small problems Limelight has. Limelight's content is very inconsistent between how it works and the user interfaces. Some addons feel like they've been strapped from Gmodstore whilst some feel properly made for Limelight. By this I mean, the content is very inconsistent and self-intuitive, especially for new users. 

Which pretty much leads me onto my main point. Some features in Limelight require commands, where are these commands written? Nowhere. New players are going to join the server and have literally no clue how to do anything. Which is pretty much one of the larger issues as a whole - new player friendliness. Limelight, as a gamemode, isn't user-friendly.

Let's say that I'm a new player who's just connected to the server and I want to grow some weed. How would I know how the weed system works without having to search through the forums? I wouldn't. I also shouldn't have to rely on other players in-game to teach or show me how something works. There should be a guide in-game which pops up, or something along those lines, when I place down a weed pot. An example of this is like the Arma 3 help menu, see image 1. This would massively reduce the fact that new players pretty much have to rely on other players to guide them through the gamemode, and would also stop new players from getting bored because they can't do anything without asking someone a question. 

"But Cole, isn't that what teachers are for?" - Teachers aren't robots, they're not online 24/7 and they don't know everything about the gamemode. Teachers also shouldn't have to be teaching players how to use, what appear to be basic for long-term players, features or mechanics in the gamemode. Instead they should be teaching players how to roleplay, improve upon roleplays and other stuff along those lines (building, tools, etc.).

Will it take time to make these changes, should they get implemented? Yes. Does it require a load of developers? No. I'm sure the current team, both staff and non-staff (sorry Teachers and Contribs), will put the effort into helping Limelight if they actually want it to regrow and start becoming what it once was.

/rant


TL;DR - Limelight needs to become more user-friendly, especially for new players, in order to stop players relying on other players to show them how to use basic features and mechanics of the gamemode. Add back the commands tab. Add small pop up guides that show to players when they do something, such as placing a weed pot/UV light or when someone joins a job like 'Mechanic'. Making Limelight more user-friendly removes the need to rely on other members within the community and also makes new(er) players less bored since they're not constantly asking "how do I do this?" and "how do I do that?".

Reference: Image #1