Dryvit: We had 28 new recruits in one day, 23 another, 13 on a week day. Chat is always full. I am not to sure of the point to this post, but the parts calling ACP lazy is a bit much. I would expect ex leaders, much like ex Presidents to be respectful to the ones they once led. It is very easy as you prove to show the bad, but not easy to find the answer. If it was that clear, you would have posted it in big bold type instead of using that for calling us lazy. The answer ACP seeks will arrive Tuesday. We must be patient, for Tuesday all will be revealed to the masses of ACP and beyond. Wear your dancing shoes, cuz we will be dancing in the streets!!!
If you’re too lazy to read this, at least look at the graphs with the descending lines, and you’ll know that something is wrong. As for fixing it, you need to read it…
As much as it pains me to break my perfect total of 200 posts, something needs to be said. Armies are falling, ACP included, and everyone is looking for a quick fix. Sorry to tell you this, but there is no quick fix, no elevator back to the top, and no one seems to be willing (or perhaps they are just unsure how) to do the hard work that is necessary. Most of those who think they know how to fix armies are wrong, otherwise someone would have fixed it by now. If you want to know how I turned ACP into an army with 60-80 soldiers at every battle, you can come find me and hope we have a few hours.
I was planning to make an extremely long post on exactly why armies are falling and how to fix them, but in my retirement I find that I am much too lazy, much like most of the soldiers reading this. That’s right, I’m calling you out. Let’s face it, even if I did give you an outline of how to do it, most leaders either wouldn’t read it or wouldn’t want to put in the work necessary to fix the problem. For this reason, I choose to focus solely on ACP’s current situation and what we must do to dig ourselves out.
Where we are right now is in a false state of comfort, that everything is going well (this goes for all armies). However, there are danger signs making themselves more prominent by the week.
It would seem by looking at our hits totals that we are doing fine (still over 100,000 hits a month). They are decreasing, but not to the point where we should panic, necessarily…
Total Hits:
As a note, I took over at the end of November and retired at the beginning of June. Every month I was leader, our hits increased over the previous month with the exception of May when we got tangled up in a war with the Nachos. We got a slight boost in hits between June and May (as was expected due to summer), but remarkably the hits dropped for the rest of the summer despite the fact that everyone was out of school. Please note that the September 2009 total is a projection based on how many hits per day we’ve had so far. There is a dramatic falloff now that we don’t have the summer to keep us afloat anymore.
The real problem lies hidden beneath these totals however, as I noticed by looking at what I always viewed as a better measurement of success: views of the Join page. This signifies how many recruits are finding our site. Here is the average number of page views of the Join page dating back as far as we have statistics, and you will get a better sense of the problems we face.
Join Page Views:
Our hits were pretty decent when I was leader compared to the months prior, but they’ve been dropping since then. It doesn’t seem like such a big issue except that during the summer, everyone is home, so those hits should have been higher than they were during the school year. The fact that they were lower means the issue is probably more severe than the statistics indicate. Currently, we’ve been getting an average of 102 hits per day, about half of what we had in April and almost as low as November when we had all those issues…
Here is a graph of the chat page, which gives a better sense of how many soldiers we have in general than does pure hits, which include soldiers from other armies.
Chat Page Views:
Since the peak in May (498 views per day), the hits have dropped to 262 this month, around where we were in December/January.
This is the scariest statistic, due to the fact that you need recruits for the army to grow, and (along with the fact we’re shrinking) you can see our Google Searches are way down from a few months ago. They’re coming back a little, but we’re talking about less than half the number we used to get in March-May when we were at our peak. Note, the numbers is the average number of Google Searches per weekend (per month).
Google Searches:
Most or all of these problems can be fixed with one thing: activeness. When Oagal was leader, we were on Club Penguin all the time. Now most of us go on once every 2 weeks. Co-Leaders, 3rd in Commands, and Generals should get everyone together to go on Club Penguin as soon as they get on. It can be for patrolling or recruiting or go to Mammoth and just fight someone, but we’re losing recognition (and Google Searches) because no one sees us on Club Penguin anymore. Instead of trying to schedule practices with other armies, we need to have more recruiting sessions and practice sessions with just ACP to see how many soldiers we have left and to work on tactics. No one seems to know what’s going on during battles anymore. I can give the leaders more detailed instructions if they want to ask me, but to write it all out here when most soldiers don’t need to see it seems unecessary. Just make sure you get on Club Penguin regularly without being told. It is your duty as a soldier to serve your army, not just sit on chat all day and then complain about not getting promoted. If we don’t get on Club Penguin and recruit, we’ll have the same problem as RPF where all their soldiers are old and don’t want to work hard anymore. I built ACP around recruits when I was leader because they have the best work ethic. You can’t argue with the results I got. It’s on you, the soldiers, to make ACP the best army it can be, so get to work.
~Boomer
