What are the major factors that affect online playerbase?

[Person_Random 4,991]

Hey all!

You may have seen some of my previous work in creating the Tanki Fund Tracker and the Dark Matter Mini-Game Simulator. As the eSports Tanki Fund comes to a close, I'm thinking of making a new side project, something that might come in handy for future funds (and *sighs* might help me get over my fear of SQL joins): yep, a playerbase tracker similar to TankiRating, but the difference is that I'll try to predict some trends in the playerbase based on what is or might be happening (e.g. DDoS attacks, new updates, events, sales). And for that, I'll need your help - I might know what to implement, but I might not know too much about the playerbase.

So what are the (biggest) factors that affect the playerbase in your opinion? Here are some of my thoughts:

• DDoS attacks/server issues or something that falls under server status (e.g. Great for working servers, Okay for some reported server issues, Bad for DDoS/major outages)
• Ongoing events (e.g. True/False for an event going on)
• Ongoing sales (e.g. True/False for sales, or maybe report sale percentages by parsing)
• Day of the week (e.g. encode integers to days or perhaps T/F for weekend day)

Of course, time of day is a major factor, but it is factored into the seasonal trends of the playerbase time series, so I did not include it.

If you have some other ideas that I didn't mention or features/projects you want me to take on, I'd be glad to hear. Thanks for your time! 

 

[NikmanGT 4,376]

Hey, nice of you to take your time and implement such a thing. Hard work never goes to waste

I would like to list my observations in the following that all of the above things influence the player base with the largest contribution

DDos lists out the potential players who want to play the game at any time, whereas sales and mainly events (like the main ones) bring out the total current player base as to how many people still play/ want to play the game.

It would be helpful if you can make an estimate column (for an upcoming sales/events) and predict how much will be the player base at that point of time. 

[DragonKnight 414]

Contests - example more stars achieved will get Scorpion turret. There are players willing to grind for the early access turret - Scorpion, so playing MM is the only way to earn stars for this challenge because stars from special missions wont be counted at all. (Unsure about the stars that can be purchased from shop)

 

[LONDON.ENGLAND 302]

Challenge main reward, like now I expect more people playing to get titan LC compared to a prime or old XT that’s been out for a number of years