By Espark on Fri 12 Mar, 2021.
Membership plateau
If you have been thinking that the server has been less busy than usual, you would be correct. Server membership and server activity has been leveling off. The release of Moonrise on Steam on August 4th saw a modest rise in membership, but since mid September, membership has plateaued. Membership peaked on September 26 at just under 26k. Since then, the server has been hovering around 25,800 members. Some users haven't noticed much change in activity level. Mexx, a long time member and #10 most active in the server said, "I don't really notice activity dropping. Whenever I'm online there's people in general who i can talk with." Others say the overall activity is going down, but there are still a core group of active people who keep this place fun and active. Otlaxuv, #3 most active on the server said, "[The activity is] decreasing but the active people still makes this a fun place to visit."
There are likely several reasons for the leveling off in membership. First, there hasn't been any major updates to the mobile game since Polaris was released in June 2019. Although there was a sharp increase in membership during the Summer Skirmish Tournament in the end of July 2020, since the tournament closed on Aug 8th, many of the people who joined for that event may have left the server. Also, with the start of the school year in September, many members may have put their priorities in studying and grades. Only time will tell if this trend in membership stagnation will continue or if the expected release of Moonrise for mobile by the end of 2020 will jolt more activity into the server.
Written on Friday, Oct 9. Stats subject to change.
Mountains/Mine buff for Moonrise
There has been a lot of talk about the Moonrise increasing in mountains and mines for all the tribes, and for Xin-Xin and Quetzali in particular. On October 1., Zoy posted this in #Steam-news.
Balance Changes General: * Mountain spawn rate increased: .15 -> .2 * Metal spawn rate increased: .5 -> .85
Xin-Xi: * Mountain spawn rate increased: 1.5 -> 2 * Metal spawn rate increased: 1 -> 1.5
Quetzali: * Metal spawn rate increased: .1 -> 1
This week, the server started to see screenshots of Moonrise Steam games covered in mountains and bursting with metal. This new potential in mines has led to more powerful forge sites. Previously, level 8 forges were a dream and close to impossible. Six months ago, Quasistellar was able to achieve a level 8 forge on the Steam Beta version using the map generator. Quasistellar said, "It took over 20 000 000 attempts to find it. Steam version, sandbox, massive map.” However, with the new Moonrise update, TideTideTide said they recently achieved a level 8 forge on only the "2nd try but both attempts were 900 massive dryland."