Community and Numbers
One more week and February 2021 is basically done! Financially, the month looks as great as the weather today (19°, what the hell) and a lot has happened so far. Let’s dig right into it!
Join our Discord!
The biggest news is the evangelion of our little discord server. Since I wanted to open up the map editor for everyone to help place additional drops in countries that are yet too easy, I quickly cobbled together a little, cozy and free discord server. You can join us here. German, as well as English speaking people are welcome! I won’t be able to communicate by other means, so you’ll have to stick to one of the two! There’s already over 100 geotastic fans in there and a lot are helping out with map drops and additional landmarks. Don’t hesitate if you’d like to help as well.
New Rating System
Since a lot of people are currently working with the map editor, I spent a lot of time tweaking and fixing the drop system according to some of the feedback. The main issue was the relative rating system. That went out the window a couple of days ago and was replaced by a classic absolute 1 to 5 system.
The same metrics can be used to initially set up drops. As soon as enough drop ratings have been accumulated, the plan is to write an algorithm, that will reevaluate the current rating and classify the drop differently, if needed. But that’s a to-do for the future me.
User-based API quota metrics
Another little update comes in form of some additionally user-based logging. The statistics tab in the user settings war grayed out for the longest time but was filled with some life today! You can check how much API quota you have consumed per month. This might help you to make an informed decision on how much you might want to donate, if you decide to help out financially. Feel free to check out this new little widget.
General Statistics
Last but not least, I wanted to share some more statistics with you. Especially regarding user base growth as well as daily cost increase. The trend is still upwards and the daily expenses reach new heights every week.
First up, daily operational costs:
The numbers already span 112 days now… wow! The latest peak was last Friday with 103 EUR (net). The servers were very busy and I had to adjust the quotas twice o keep up with the demand.
Next up: The player base!
There’s currently 20.599 registered users on the service. The daily registrations are accelerating slightly, but not by a huge amount. The growth is rather stable. The sheer amount of currently registered users does explain the weekly increase of daily costs though. Lucky for me (and everyone else who likes to play) the daily donations did increase as well and the service is (still!) in the green.
Thanks for everyone who donated to the service and of course to all the helpful people on the discord server who help out with the curated drops and famous landmarks. You’re awesome!
