Flying the empty skies.

A few things first. Yes, I know it's early Monday morning (in my part of the world) so there are a long list of people that could be off at work/other activities, but looking at the three digit number, representing the currently online population....

From yesterday, the Sunday before today. The numbers are better, but not by much.

I snapped this screenshot 10 days ago, before my last round of "being absent". Now, I usually don't come on during "primetime" (for the sake of conversation, let's pin that down between 7-10 pm, across all of the North American time zones), but still, I would think there would be somewhat better numbers during the "offtimes".

Perhaps, I am wrong?

At the time of writing this, I quickly logged into World of Tanks and selected the West Coast server. 3000+ folks on, right at that moment. Okay, one argument would obviously be that Tanks has been around a lot longer than Planes has, so I have factored that in. Not doing so would only serve to "cherry pick" the facts.

I would have snapped a picture from the "still-not-released" World of Warships too, but the server is currently offline, due to an update. I do have one from yesterday, from within the same time period as now....

The reasons for what is, or should I say, isn't going on, is as varied is the individual interpretations of the people who look at the facts/evidence/conjecture. Tanks, despite having patch issues, over-under balance dilemmas and a long list of other chronic problems, is still rolling people out into the virtual battlefield. Ships, entering the final phase of Closed Beta/first phase of Open Beta has surpassed the hype levels that Planes was able to generate back in it's own pre-lanuch days.

For me, it's a real shame. I still like to sit down and fly amongst the virtual clouds, strafing ground targets and chasing down worthy adversaries, using every trick in the book in an attempt to get an upperhand during each and every encounter.

Still, I am holding on to the hope that things will turn around for World of Warplanes. Either that, or just be another player who will ride this flaming wreck straight into the ground.

*****Update*****

A mere 10-ish minutes after posting all of the above, I login to Ships after the update and check out the numbers.