User talk:A Helpful Little Gnome/SandboxSZI

One possibility

Not sure if you want comments here or on your talk page - feel free to move this if it's in the wrong spot.

In looking at this and comparing with UDWiki:Project Timeline, one thought I had concerned the second (yellow-highlighted) set of ???s. The timing of the rise of zombies leading up to that coincides with a zombie mechanic buff, but also with the opening of Borehamwood, and the drop (and rebalancing in favor of survivors) coincides with its quarantine. Eyeballing it seems to indicate a similar pattern with the previous periods around Monroeville's activity. My theory is that Borehamwood and Monroeville both attracted mostly survivor players over, looking for the challenge, and temporarily ignoring Malton, leaving it more to zombies; when the fighting in those cities ended, the survivors returned and rebalanced the game.

Not sure how legit this is (I joined long after these events, which all took place back in '08). But a thought. Bob Moncrief ^EBD•W! 23:09, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

In the absence of any other explanations (other than update 17, which seems weak) it looks like Borehamwood is responsible. I can't imagine the ratio spontaneously changing significantly without events and/or updates. It's a bit harder to separate the effects of Monroeville, given the other events happening, though. --  AHLGTG THE END IS NIGH! 23:21, 17 December 2013 (UTC)