
It seems to be an inevitable fate for every group I have been in, and probably every group I will ever be in.
group is going great at the beginning, in the case of EXP we were definitely one of the top 10 groups
we're steam rolling, got 7 active players who are on every day
X happens
everybody gets discouraged or disinterested in game because of Y or Z
people see that less and less people are logging in
snowball effect, they become less active due to people being less active creating a feed back loop
everyone stops playing
Its really shocking how strong and advanced our group was, only to be completely wiped out due to the smallest setbacks. We weren't noobs either, most were hermits that have been playing for 1-2 years, with the exception of 2 noobs.
In our case it seems like the reason people rage quit was because a couple of pay2win noobs started destroying a few easy to replace things off claim. Then our strongest player gets murdered by some non-noobs. I didn't give much of a fug about the offclaim things, we built them knowing that someone would probably destroy them anyway. They weren't worth the money needed to expand the claim over them.
The worst part about this is the fact that EXP is a temp server that is destined to end, and everything would have destroyed and everyone would have died anyway. The server was suppose to be for fun, not to rage quit after the first unpleasant thing that happens.
I think there is a great irony about this permadeath game... The fact that people can be permanently killed in the game draws people in, and then they simply quit when it happens to them. Dying is part of the game, not the end of the world.