It would be amazing if we could hold on to even half those numbers over the next 6 months. My personal wishlist for "how to maintain and grow your MP base":
- have a replay section on this forum (new players interested in MP want to see replays to speed up learning process) so replays can be uploaded and discussed
- have some kind of elo/ladder system so that people can be matched with people of equal skill and not have boring noobstomps or get stomped over and over by much better players, then frustrated and leave
- either make a separate win/loss count for comp stomps vs. win/loss count against humans or just stop comp stomps from counting towards your win/loss period (judging people's skill without elo and without knowing if the wins are all from comp stomps or not makes it difficult to balance matches)
- agree on being able to see who is in what games and make win/loss percentage easy to see as well so that even if there isn't a ladder/automatch system (it's a big addition), you could still filter available games according to the skill level you are looking for.
- advertise on ICO that this forum exists so that people looking for MP help or with questions have a resource