Everyone knows by now a survival genre is not an MMO, and per server population is a tiny amount compared to MMOs. In general to play with other people online you play on an official server (no mods, that’s a bad thing), and no admin policing bad people (a second strike). The RP people flock to modded private servers but these servers are typically for invite only… you can’t just crash their party, they won’t want you (strike three).
In my opinion Conan Exiles is becoming a niche game for RP people on private servers. The population on official servers is tourists who got the game and will eventually quit the game due to problems, lack of company, or hindered by being denied mods they like in single player but can’t get online. Too much work to get the game the way they want it and play that game online. Single player only survival genre games are unfettered by the requirements Conan Exiles is. Why have a dynamic mod capable game online when the online players don’t get access to that extra stuff easily (as in official servers don’t have mods), and for most it’s too much work setting up and getting on a private server? Enhanced admin controls such as those offered by some mods make this worse, and reintroduce an old mistake, the presence of a dungeon master type player. That one or more admin players is responsible for the theme and play on the server by means of making quests and providing the only path(s) to success on their server. That their inherent bias and prejudice could easily make or break your experience.
To gain more market - players who want a bigger online experience in scope and number of people on the server together, there is the idea of endgame war servers. These are servers that host a vanilla endgame war setting which players can que up for (similar to many games that have a que for engagement) and a massive PvP battle follows. In this case there is little or no reward except bragging rights and perhaps the score being kept on a global scale of which faction (which a player would choose on entering the que for endgame war) is winning (and perhaps a point at which the war is won, when announcement is made and things are reset). Faction chosen would be a religion choice (but the player would not necessarily have to have this religion to fight for that faction). So the que which is represented by that endgame server’s area (one server dedicated to this function per area, a ping of say <= 100ms) would have the job of showing the list of players in the que, and their faction choice. After a predetermined amount of minimum wait time, the que would launch the war as soon as there are enough players to do so (at least two) and reducing faction choices to two in majority which become the opposing factions for the war (instead of all of the ones the players chose) and having each player then choose between the remaining two chosen factions to war. At this point the server would attempt to sort out sides by player level and switch faction on the lower level people if necessary to fill out both sides. The sides then balanced (hopefully) the server would then spawn every player in one of the two opposing cities (a predetermined endgame war map) in a PvP fight alongside their religious avatar. Ideas?