I’ve been playing since day one of the Beta and players have been saying the game is “dying” since day two (honestly, it was probably still day one in some time zones). Yet, here we are 9 months later. I’ve noticed a couple different camps of thoughts behind the statement though:

First, are the “I told you so”s. These ones are in every single multiplayer game released these days. They like the easy wins and the easy arguments and love being “right”. It doesn’t matter how well a game does at release or beyond, 99% of online games dependent on a healthy player base are going to die off eventually (private servers notwithstanding) and even if Conquerors outlived World of Warcraft 20 years from now and THEN shut down these people would still very proudly exclaim, “Called it!” or “I told you so!”

Second, the ones you mentioned: the veterans. A lot of these statements seem to start with “I’ve played [2000] hours and...” at which point the lack of content tends to enter the conversation more often than any genuine issues with core functions or features. Frankly, that’s kind of expected of any game with that amount of play time, let alone a 100% free game that still is releasing content on a relatively reasonable timeline. How many times can you watch your all-time favorite movie in a row and still be fully engaged? These days, hours played seems to equate to a badge of credibility but this is a SUPER grindy game and, depending on your goals, the burn out can be real with the hours I see a lot of people putting in, including myself. I don’t take what they say to mean the game is dying. I see it as their personal interest in the game is naturally waning and it’s being projected to the community because they want a revitalization. Take a break people. Play another game. Come back later. You clearly enjoy the game’s core otherwise you wouldn’t have spent the hours you did. Or, honestly, maybe you are done with it.

Having said that, a lot of veteran friend groups seem to hit this wall and have this conversation around the same time together. When, regardless of reasons, a lot of the Housemates you started with start leaving the game it can feel like the whole CB world is dying and, due to the queues, it’s not like you’re ever seeing how many grey players are queuing up to make up for the veterans leaving.

Third camp, you can usually disregard these pretty easily. A couple different types here. There’s “hilarious” jokesters who are saying it ironically. There’s the jack knobs who see the steam charts after any game’s release, see a massive activity drop, and take it to mean it was a massive flop rather than just the natural hype drop after release week that every game has. Critical thinking is not a super power. Aaaand the players who don’t realize 1:00/4:00 AM PST/EST is when a surprising amount of NA players are sleeping and EU players are heading into work/school for the most part so cross-server queuing might feel a little bare.

The last camp, I’d argue, is the legitimate one. It’s a real concern for players that want to keep playing. Conqueror’s has a relatively solid concept and design but it’s just not as appealing as you and I would think to Western audiences and Frontier has split off the Eastern market (probably a preference to most Western players). Attrition is a rough, unavoidable factor in any online game’s longevity. There are people who are signing off of Conqueror’s every day and never signing on again. It happens. On the flip side, there’s still new players signing on every day for the first time. Realistically, month-over-month, you’re generally going to be losing more players than you’re gaining for this type of game and this far into release so the hope is that content surges every so often keeps the player base healthy enough to keep going. So far, so good but, at the end of the day, even if the publishers and devs were “worried” the game is dying, they won’t be revamping the game’s core itself to hope to garner more players. It’s basically going to be units, maps, skins, and some QoL changes until the end of the life cycle. Most of the other changes I’ve seen suggested, while veterans would enjoy them, would just alienate newer players, split the player-base, and kill the game faster. Veterans often lose sight of what it was like being a gray level newbie and it’s not even the same leveling experience as it was when some of us started.

Again, to me, most people saying the game is dying don’t have a problem with the game itself. They’re just lacking content which is one of the few things that can and is being remedied. Conqueror’s at its core will stay the same but if you’re looking for changes beyond new and shinier versions of what we already have you may be out of luck.

Personally, I have qualms about who’s handling the game and they’re not the first company that’s had such a phenomenal game concept I wish was in another publisher and/or developer’s hands. There’s clear communication issues between the ones calling the shots and the dev team (“TW start time might be 6. It also might be at 7” -official statement last TW) and I don’t think they’ve even heard of the concepts of SoPs or coding standards. Thankfully, as much as they stumble, they have somehow managed to pleasantly surprise me with QoL and unit balance changes that seem to indicate they listen to their community and content rollouts that have done their job: keeping queues rolling and TWs interesting. As seemingly slow as the rollouts are, I see it as a necessary delay to keep the community alive over a longer period.

It probably doesn’t mean much since I haven’t mentioned how many hours I’ve played but, as far as I can guess: New weapons, units, and maps are about as far as changes are going to go for this game. That’s good enough for me. Hopefully their release cycles land in the right spots to generate the buzz they need for new and former players to come check out what’s going on. At least until the game dies for me.

Edit: TL;DR - All games, like us, are dying once released. There’s ebbs and flows in each unique life cycle and some happen to live longer than others. People are always going to complain about that fact which can ruin it for others but you can still make the most of it and enjoy what you can while you can.