Forge player drop due to lack of core features, says Dark Vale Games

Forge developer Dark Vale Games identifies the drop in players to missing core features, difficult barrier of entry for new players and general lack of polish, according to the latest development update.

"We know that the number of people playing Forge day today has diminished sharply. This is caused by a multitude of issues, but none are as responsible as the difficulty new players have getting into the game and the general level of polish of the game that's there," the development update stated.

Dark Vale promises to address the MMO's issues over four upcoming patches, with the first arriving within next "several days" and the last at the end of April.

For new players, patch fixes include an overhauled tutorial, a starter zone with bots, and improved instructions for using abilities.

New core features will include lobbies with group support, server browser, skill based matchmaking and ladders.

Character-based updates will include free unlimited respecs, two armor sets per character, new skin system so players can swap out individual items rather than updating the entire character.

Adhoc fixes will improve Ravager and Tinker classes, and performance tweaks for certain maps.

Forge was released on Dec. 4, 2012 for Windows PC.