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Seems like the game has peaked on XFire
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I am.
xfire shows more people are playing Diablo 3 than AOC, DDO, COH, Everquest 2, Everquest and well, many more.
Diablo 2's at #37. Its a 2d game with horrendous graphics kicking ass on alot of newer games.
If xfire is really that accurate it's gotta scare developers like ArenaNet who are relying entirely on box sales and repeat business to pay for their big-budget Guild Wars 2.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
lol this argument never gets old.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
lol this argument never gets old.
Brandeen, they be talking about x-fire agin.You are claiming statistical significance to XFire numbers that they themselves would and could never claim.
From 70.000 (in Dez/January as far I remember) down to 16.000.......wow
But you know how you notice that a server is declining and doesnt get a lot of new players ?
On the first months on the Auction House you could buy loads of stuff on one of such servers who were high and changed to standard.
And what happened ?
In the meanwhile you almost cant find stuff for lvl 10-30 .....AH is more or less dead for lower levels.
So you are one of the 25 million that hasn't used it.
The trend for TOR is down, and IMO, more so than it should be at this stage in the game's life.
While I have no idea on TORs subscription numbers currently, X-fire combined with a ton in anecdotal evidence should be enough for anyone to see as it stands this game is both having a problem with retention and with a less active player base.
Neither of this things are good.
Yes people choose to install XFire or not but this thread is not about who uses XFire etc.
The sample is: "XFire users who choose to (buy and) play SWTOR"
And this sample is random unless you believe that EA have deliberately gone out of their way to persuade XFire users to buy/not buy SWTOR. Nor is there evidence to suggest that XFire users prefer one type of online game over another.
People have to remember that there will be an error however and larger, probably, than the 2-5% we are used to seeing in polls. What we have observered so far however suggests that the error is not so large as to render XFire 'useless' e.g. the average hours played is in line with what EA have said subscribers play. If XFire users all played 20 hours a day then .....!!! but they don't. And so on.
So this weekend - if EA's marketing campaign has had any impact - there should be an increase in the number of people who "use XFire and play SWTOR". And then a drop off after the free weekend.Now we have no way of knowing how sucessful the free weekend will be but it is reasonable to assume that some people will try SWTOR so it is reasonable to look for a blip in the XFire player numbers.
Test and retest.
Don't think Yahoo is very good for searching the internet. In all my years of using the internet I have yet to have a friend or meet anyone who said they used it.
I completely agree and so would anyone else but the blind fanboys or those without a firm grasp of statistics.
Tho, I have to say that, while Xfire does provide a good measure of the general population trend of a game, i'd be more hesitant to predict anything in terms of the number of subs, based on the xfire data at this point in time. It is well-known that most MMOs tend to drop in population during the first couple of months post launch and people tend to play less after the honey-moon effect has worn off.
To which extent the decline in swtor population is due to the expected downtrend all new MMOs exhibit or a genuine and more sever population issue is a bit 'hazy' when judging on xfire data alone. But like you said, combine all the sources of data we have (some more reputable than others), all of which mirror this downtrend i might add and they paint a pretty grim picture indeed.
* Waves at Pushkina *
There is evidence that XFire users prefer one type of online game over another. FPS and RTS gamers have had to install XFire to stay in touch with their friends and find servers. MMO gamers, who have traditionally been bound to one server and had good communication tools in-game, haven't had similar reason to install XFire.
EDIT: Also there's 'evidence' to suggest that people who are new to multiplayer games and have previously played mostly single player games (KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age) are less likely to have XFire installed than those people who're more used to playing online games. And there's 'evidence' to suggest that fans of previous Bioware games might be playing also new Bioware games /EDIT
Also there is "evidence" that people new to multiplayer games have a tendency to install xFire in the early weeks and prgressively uninstall it over the next weeks.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Maybe, just maybe, the people who use XFire are actually people who like FPS and RTS and twitch style MMOs. These people would normally not change thier preferences and stay with a game that is none of the above, even if they tried it for a while. Maybe thats more likely that the total BS you are spitting there trying your best to be a smart ass and make a point.
At some point in time you XFire people will just have to admit that you like certain things that others may not like. And that no matter how much you try and tell those people, they are not going to like what you do. So all these numbers you have, giving trends about what you like, just are not going to be useful to trend what the other guy likes. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE SAME TASTE IN GAMES AS THEY DO, GET OVER IT, YOUR LIKES ARE NOT WHAT EVERYONE LIKES, YOUR DISLIKES ARE NOT WHAT EVERYONE DISLIKES. DO YOU GET IT YET? YOUR NUMBERS TELL US WHAT YOU LIKE AND WHAT YOU DO NOT, THEY DO NOT TELL US WHAT EVERYONE LIKES OR DISLIKES.
Just sayin ya' know. It is very well possible that the people who use Xfire use it for a reason, found it for a reason, decided to install it for a reason. And with that there might also be a reason those that dont have it, decided not to go look for it, decided not to install it. Did any of you ever stop to figure out why that was?
(DISCLAIMER - The use of the word YOU in the above post is not directed at any one person in particular, but towards those who fall into the category itself - there is no personal attack here, neither intentional nor implied.)
I certainly doubt people who are into twitch based games are going to like a game like TOR. Those that like to rush to endgame are best playing something else. That should have been obvious the very moment STORY was advertised as the major selling point of the game.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
Why don't people use common sense?
We know SWTOR population is declining by the statement of the game having 1.7million subs however amount of time after they announced 2 million sold, we know in the difference of time the game would have sold at least a few hundred thousand more.
We also know that the server list has gone from mostly heavy to mostly standard. The three servers I made characters on all went from full to standard and the population on each planet dropped over the months and the population on the fleet went from 200ish to 40-80 during peak. So i don't believe Bioware have kept on increasing the server limit after Jan as the population has clearly dropped. There are still probably a lot of people playing, maybe around 1.5 million now but there are far too many servers and they need to start merging them or more people will quit on low populated servers.
There is evidence that XFire users prefer one type of online game over another. FPS and RTS gamers have had to install XFire to stay in touch with their friends and find servers. MMO gamers, who have traditionally been bound to one server and had good communication tools in-game, haven't had similar reason to install XFire.
EDIT: Also there's 'evidence' to suggest that people who are new to multiplayer games and have previously played mostly single player games (KOTOR, Mass Effect, Dragon Age) are less likely to have XFire installed than those people who're more used to playing online games. And there's 'evidence' to suggest that fans of previous Bioware games might be playing also new Bioware games /EDIT
Also there is "evidence" that people new to multiplayer games have a tendency to install xFire in the early weeks and prgressively uninstall it over the next weeks.
Maybe, just maybe, the people who use XFire are actually people who like FPS and RTS and twitch style MMOs. These people would normally not change thier preferences and stay with a game that is none of the above, even if they tried it for a while. Maybe thats more likely that the total BS you are spitting there trying your best to be a smart ass and make a point.
At some point in time you XFire people will just have to admit that you like certain things that others may not like. And that no matter how much you try and tell those people, they are not going to like what you do. So all these numbers you have, giving trends about what you like, just are not going to be useful to trend what the other guy likes. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE SAME TASTE IN GAMES AS THEY DO, GET OVER IT, YOUR LIKES ARE NOT WHAT EVERYONE LIKES, YOUR DISLIKES ARE NOT WHAT EVERYONE DISLIKES. DO YOU GET IT YET? YOUR NUMBERS TELL US WHAT YOU LIKE AND WHAT YOU DO NOT, THEY DO NOT TELL US WHAT EVERYONE LIKES OR DISLIKES.
Just sayin ya' know. It is very well possible that the people who use Xfire use it for a reason, found it for a reason, decided to install it for a reason. And with that there might also be a reason those that dont have it, decided not to go look for it, decided not to install it. Did any of you ever stop to figure out why that was?
"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."Merging servers will definitely need to be done at some point for at least some servers, all MMO lose subs after the initial launch "honeymoon" & SWTOR is no different, the weekend Pass & Friend Trials - along with a big advertising campaign should up the ante a bit but may not put boots on the ground on the servers most needing fresh blood.
The past week on my server has seen the first real decline in numbers, I think the players hit 50 faster & in larger numbers than BioWare had planned for & the future focus will need to put a much bigger emphasis on creating stuff for the maxed players to do, harder difficulty raids are 1 part of that but they will need to step up to the plate & pump out a pretty large amount of content in the game's 1st year to have a chance of remaining successful, 2012 is going to be a fearsomely competitive year for MMO's & a bunch of high-profile titles are on the way:
GW2
TSW
TERA
Firefall
Project Copernicus (MMO in same setting as Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning)
& that's just the ones that spring to mind.
I could point to XFires current /recent 'top' games e.g. WoW and LoL, other mmos along with those that 'charted' highly (Rift, WAR, AoC etc. ). Maybe XFire is really an mmo tracker! Suggesting mmos have/have had good ingame tools speaks volumes however.
I could ask for a link to the evidence about the makeup of the current XFire users population - but we know there are no studies; not the 'what XFire was developed for population but the current population'. But this isn't about XFire.
HOWEVER you can call the sample self-selected by all means. Which would make it - a sample with an unknown margin of error.
Either way all we haveis a sample of XFire users who play SWTOR. Tracking them suggests certain things about SWTOR with an unknown margin of error. The key question, covered pages back is: is the margin of error 'good enough' - and so far it has 'matched' what we know e.g. during EGA. Now if XFire users had increased when EA said that follow on subs had gone down serious questions would be the order of the day.
We should still challenge what we see however: there is a free weekend - will XFire reflect this? And next week sees another sub-renewal point, the end of 60 day timecards etc.
But I think I might just go and play that well known mmo, or is it FPS, called Minecraft. Ranked 5 on XFire today is it?
DAY
DATE
# PLAYERS
% PREV WEEK
% MAXIMUM
NOTES
Thursday
01/03/12
4493
-12,69%
-61,92%
real
Friday
02/03/12
4584
-10,63%
-61,15%
real
Saturday
03/03/12
4757
-10,02%
-59,69%
real
Sunday
04/03/12
5071
-7,97%
-57,03%
real
Monday
05/03/12
4582
-19,42%
-61,17%
real
Tuesday
06/03/12
4371
-9,37%
-62,96%
real
Wednesday
07/03/12
4398
-6,62%
-62,73%
real
Thursday
08/03/12
4272
-4,92%
-63,80%
real
Friday
09/03/12
4216
-8,03%
-64,27%
real
Saturday
10/03/12
4487
-5,68%
-61,97%
real
Sunday
11/03/12
4652
-8,26%
-60,58%
real
Monday
12/03/12
4384
-4,32%
-62,85%
real
Tuesday
13/03/12
4170
-4,60%
-64,66%
real
Wednesday
14/03/12
4299
-2,25%
-63,57%
real
Thursday
15/03/12
4444
4,03%
-62,34%
start free trials
Friday
16/03/12
4667
10,70%
-60,45%
real
Two days having an increase from same day in previous week, after months of constant decrease. If it wasn't that xFire "doesn't mean shit", I'd say it has a relation to the free trial.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
The disposition of xfire users towards certain genres do not matter, since we do not compare SWTOR to Call of Duty series numbers or anything like that, we are comparing it to the other MMOs which are tracked by xfire. Infact we are not even talking about the xfire population as such, we are only talking about the rather small subset of it that bought and installed SWTOR.
A continuing decline on ANY kind of statistic is bad in the absence of others showing a different trend. Even with faulty data(non changing source) there shouldn't be a steady decline. The poll mentioned above about asking 5 democrats and 15 rebublicans about Obama is an excellent example, yes it would be skewed and show a wrong result in the context of general population, but if repeated daily it wouldn't show a downward trend. Infact it would be less likely to show a downward trend as it would require one of the democrats to "switch sides"(provided the result was black and white for republic vs democrats votes) which likely would require a current negative event associated with obama.
Arguing wether a poll of xfire population is within 5% or within 50% of general population is meaningless until the xfire population of SWTOR has stabilized. Because whatever the delta is between general population and xfire users, it should be constant(if they prefer FPS it will be skewed, but its unlikely that more and more xfire users would begin to prefer FPS every day, unless SWTOR converted them somehow, and well that would be even worse for the game/genre). And a constant can not change the outcome of a downward or upward trend.
Saying the decline xfire shows is not really happening is essentially saying that the gap between general populace and xfire is growing rapidly every day, and that makes little sense.
Obviously, people who use XFire whilst preferring RTS games invalidating all the red lines also are too cheap to buy games and so have rushed on mass to the trial explaining the two green lines, either way x fire is in no way representative of gameplay populations or trends and besides no one in my mental institution has ever used XFire and the doctors look at me funnily when I talk about my Jedi Councilor.Another 10% increase from last saturday.
Isn't it amazing how variations in the general population are reflected in xFire despite the fact that xFire does not represent in any way the general population?
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Amazing; 4981 XFire users playing SWTOR on the 17th March another 10%+ jump on the previous Saturday. Of course this can't possibly have anything to do with the free trial because if it does that would suggest some correlation between XFire and SWTOR players.....
So predictions for next week, well:
1. The free trial ends so a drop obviously; some of those trying the game may purchase but these are people who gave the game a miss at launch of course. The end of EA's fiscal quarter approaches however - will EA offer an fiscal incentive next week?
2. The 19th March - start of the new renewal period for EGA folks; end of 60 day time cards etc. Obviously some will have activated on the 25th Dec etc. but 1M+ was announced in EA's press release. Now some folk will have stopped playing already but there will surely be some who play to the end.
3. What about the 7 day free trials? EA pushed out a potential 6M+ trials. Given that XFire has gone up as a result of the free weekend it seems reasonable to assume that the impact of the 7day trials have shown up in the numbers .... no uptick though (and 6M+ is a lot) maybe a flattening out but no way of knowing whether that is the trials. It does suggest a reason why EA have launched the free weekend so soon after launch however.
So I think next week will see numbers below last week; Saturday 31st below Saturday 17th etc. Wouldn't be surprised if the drop got sharper either for a couple of weeks.
lol that was a good one.
I'm sure they are reviewing their notes on Statitstics 101.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)